In Wonderland
by hyugahime
Summary: Harry, after being saved by a mysterious stranger, is flung fifty years into the past, where he resolves to save the future by killing a 10-year-old Tom Riddle. He ends up raising him, instead. But when young Tom develops an unhealthy fixation on his new guardian, things quickly spiral out of control, and Harry finds himself entangled in a deadly game. Will history repeat itself?
1. I: down the rabbit hole

_**Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or Alice In Wonderland. This is purely for fun.**_

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Chapter 1

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_"If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't."_

_ \- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures In Wonderland_

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Harry Potter is running for his life.

He tears through the woods, his chest a raw mess of burning lungs and pounding terror and _pain_. His legs scream with each pump of his muscles, his scar burns with each panicked breath he sucks in, but he can't stop, he musn't stop, _not for a moment -_

_You cannot escape, Harry._

He will, he must, he has no choice -

Behind him, the pursuing Death Eaters fling curses, and Bellatrix' s psychotic laugh rings in his ears. Rage burns white-hot at the forefront of his mind, and the urge to twist around and _hurt_ her is nearly overwhelming, but Harry doesn't have his wand, they've taken it, the murdering bastards, they've taken _everything_.

_Oh no, Harry_, Voldemort whispers, his voice a soft hiss in the depths of Harry's mind. _Not everything. Not yet._

Harry grits his teeth and desperately tries to push the voice from his mind. Behind him, Hogwarts is burning, and somewhere in it's ancient halls his friends lay...his friends are...

_No_, Harry thinks. Because it hasn't quite hit him yet, the crumbling of his world. He knows that when it does, when it registers just how horribly wrong things have gone, his knees will buckle underneath him; his chest will give out, and his mind will shatter, and Harry Potter, The Boy Who Lived - the last hope of the wizarding world - will be _broken_. They will drag him, unresisting, to the Dark Lord, and he will die, and everything the Light has worked for, everything they've sacrificed, will be for _nothing_.

The thought is unbearable.

So Harry runs. He weaves through the ancient trees, deeper and deeper into the Forbidden Forest, while the Death Eaters chase him for their own amusement and Voldemort whispers in his mind. Eventually the trees grow thicker and closer in space, the tops of them disappearing into the canopy above his head. They block out what little light the stormy sky has to offer, and now Harry's muscles have progressed past the point of exhaustion and settled well into near-collapse. The chase has turned into a game of hide and seek, and it is only a matter of time before he loses...

Sure enough, a hand closes on the back of his shirt, and Harry is suddenly face to face with Bellatrix Lestrange. She grins madly at him, yanking him out of the shadow of the tree he'd been hiding behind into view of the other Death Eaters. They laugh and jeer and howl their victory as his legs give out beneath him and he sinks, silent, to the ground. Harry looks each of them in the eyes, his own shining with hatred. His body trembles with exhaustion and the strength of his rage, and the Death Eaters mistake this for fear.

"Oh," Bellatrix breathes, her dark head tilted. "Is little baby Potter scared?"

The others laugh sparsely. It's clear the chase has tired them out. Harry merely looks up at her, breathing hard.

Dumbledore once told him that love is the greatest magic. But Harry's love, the great fire that gave him strength and courage and hope, hope that everything would turn out okay in the end, has flickered and fizzled and died. It lies shriveled now with the cold bodies of Ron and Hermione, somewhere in Hogwarts; in its place roars _hate_.

It fills his heart, flows within him as thickly as the blood in his veins, and as Bellatrix's cold hand - the one that killed Sirius, and Molly Weasley and_ Ron - _tightens painfully around his arm, Harry is nearly consumed. It is only his weakened limbs that keep him from lunging at the madwoman, from ripping and tearing and _hurting_ her, like a rabid animal, like a _savage_ -

But she's hurt him so badly. After all the loved ones he's lost at her hands, does he not deserve a little retribution?

As it is, Harry's muscles have given out, and so he can do nothing but try not to break down as the Death Eaters congratulate themselves, as his scar burns with the force of Voldemort' s triumph.

_Did I not tell you, child?_ The Dark Lord whispers, exhilarated, amongst the turmoil of his thoughts. _This is the day of my victory, Harry Potter. This is the day you lose everything._

Bellatrix is gloating now, too. She's forcing Harry up by his arm, clearly with the intent to Disapparate, and the last shreds of Harry's composure are starting to tear -

_"Avada Kedavra!"_ A voice whispers.

There is a familiar flash of green light, and Harry tenses, sure the curse is aimed at him, that one of the Death Eaters has grown impatient or stupid or suicidally bold and decided to just kill him.

But then Bellatrix hisses in fury, and Harry follows her eyes just in time to see a Death Eater drop dead to the forest floor.

What?

There is another whisper, another flash of green, and a second Death Eater crumples to the ground. Chaos erupts; Bellatrix flings Harry to the ground, her face twisted in an ugly snarl as she searches for the killer amongst the unsettled group of servants, who are turning on each other with their wands raised, faces drawn and pale with fear.

The madwoman screams at them to be silent, and as they obey, she steps cautiously back towards Harry, who lies helplessly on the ground. Bellatrix' s black eyes dart between the corpses and their shadowed surroundings. Into the quiet, she calls,

"Who's there?"

A harsh whisper pierces the silence yet again, and Bellatrix narrowly avoids the Killing Curse, her expression contorted in shock and fury. She barely has time to regain her footing before she is dodging another curse, and another, and now there are shouts of confusion as the Death Eaters fling spells at nothing, hoping to catch their invisible foe.

"Agh!" Bellatrix screams at last, her head whipping from side to side as she marches to an astonished Harry.

"It doesn't matter!" she shouts, reaching for his arm. "Leave the coward, whoever he is! We have the boy -"

Someone moves up beside Harry, then, though he sees no one, and as Bellatrix prepares again to Disapparate, the person shifts.

"_Crucio_," they murmur, and Bellatrix goes rigid, before releasing his arm and falling onto her back, her body spasming in agony. Harry watches as her painted mouth stretches wide in a silent scream, her crazed eyes very large. Writhing and clawing at the ground, the madwoman makes a terrible image.

Through the shock, Harry registers a satisfaction deep within him at the sight, and it scares him, the strength of the feeling...

For a short while, the world becomes a vague, disinteresting blur. Harry stares at Bellatrix, his lungs still struggling to take in air, and he is dimly aware of a lapse in the strength of Voldemort's triumph as this mysterious stranger sweeps through the group of Death Eaters. They all go down as easily as children before him, these men that felled so many of his friends, and Harry sees, as the last servant pleads for mercy and is granted none, that this is no one he knows.

This person kills without hesitation, without mercy. They murder with a smooth casualness that reminds Harry vividly of Lord Voldemort - as if they've just performed a particularly irritating chore, rather than ended the lives of several human beings.

It bothers Harry, but he cannot find within himself an ounce of pity for them. He only wishes their deaths had been slower...

Disturbed again by the course of his thoughts, Harry drags himself back towards the nearest tree, mute and tense as the air shimmers unnaturally before him. _Invisibility cloak_, he thinks dimly, just as the stranger casts it off, and something odd crawls up his throat at the sight of it pooled at the stranger's feet.

It's his.

And as Harry's heart thunders, his mind clears. His brain is currently racing through a million theories as to how the stranger could have possibly discovered it, hidden away in the Room of Requirement - their last stronghold - under lock and key and spell. Voldemort, upon mastering the Elder Wand, had decided he wanted the other two Hallows, too, and so they had each taken turns enchanting the cloak' s hiding place so that only Harry could access it...

His thoughts are pulled to the ring. Harry, at his friends' urging, had hurled it into the sea some months after the siege of Hogwarts. Sneaking out of the castle and doing so had nearly cost them their lives, and he still remembers vividly the agony that had erupted in his scar once The Dark Lord learned of his actions. His elation at having stopped Voldemort from becoming the Master of Death was short-lived; Luna, Neville, and several others had perished in the face of Voldemort's fury, and since their deaths, things have gone considerably downhill.

Voldemort's forces outnumber them five to one, and Harry still has not found the seventh horcrux. He has no idea what it could possibly be; Snape had tried to tell him, before he'd died - tried to show him _something_ \- but the venom had killed him before he could explain anything, a fact that has deeply frustrated Harry for nearly a year, now.

But he supposes none of that matters, anymore.

Voldemort has won. The Light's last haven, the Room of Requirement, has finally failed them. They hadn't been expecting it; Harry had been curled up with Ginny while Ron and several others went over raid plans and Seamus McFinnigan talked quietly with Dean Thomas. Ginny had been speaking softly about something he no longer remembers, her fingers carding tenderly through his hair, when Hermione sat up, the book of curses she'd been reading falling from her lap.

And Harry will never forget the look on her face, her confused expression twisting into one of stunned realization, then white-faced terror as she sprung from the couch she'd been sitting on. Her voice was small and shaking with a hysteria that Harry had never heard before, but it immediately chilled his blood.

_"Ron."_

And Ron had turned to her, just as Harry's head shot up and the far wall opposite them exploded, dust and debris and panic preceding the triumphant Death Eaters who had marched in, wands raised, clearing the way for their lord.

Everything after that is a mess of murder and adrenaline and terror that Harry is unable to handle deciphering, right now. His closes his eyes against the image of his friends fighting for their lives - his friends are...

_"Run, Harry!" _Hermione had screamed at him, over and over in midst of the chaos. He's never seen her so...hysterical, so completely undone, her face tomato red and scrunched up and dripping tears as she shrieked at him like a banshee.

Just a few moments ago, a flash of green had struck Ron, and he'd fallen to the terrible sound of Bellatrix's laughter. Harry had been frozen at the sight, the rage that threatened to overtake him simmering down to a strange numbness that Hermione had struggled to break, shoving and punching his arms, screaming _run, run, **run, **_like a madwoman, trying to get him to the newly summoned exit.

He'd woken slowly, tried to take - then force - her with him, but Hermione had broken free from his hold and stumbled back towards Ron, her eyes red and wide.

"Run, Harry," she'd whispered, begged, just as the Death Eaters parted neatly and the Dark Lord stalked, triumphant, towards them, amongst the sea of dead.

And Harry turned without a word and ran - _like a** coward**_ \- just as Hermione spun on her heel and raised her wand. He'd heard Voldemort snarl and his best friend scream a spell, before bolting out into the castle, hating himself with a fierceness that almost stopped him from fleeing. The Death Eaters had quickly given chase.

He doesn't know what happened to Ginny, and as he looks up at his savior, Harry supposes he will never find out.

"Voldemort," he rasps, struggling to sit up, and maybe stand. He wants to at least die on his feet. He wants to at least go like a Gryffindor.

_Not that I deserve to._

The young man continues to stare at him, seemingly transfixed.

Managing to get up on his knees, Harry looks back, his chin raised in defiance as he wonders silently how Voldemort pulled off this newest trick. A glamor? he ponders, a thrill of surprise running through him as he takes in the Dark Lord's new appearance. Gone are the serpentine features, the pallid skin and bloody eyes.

Instead, Tom Riddle stands before him, the spitting image of the boy from the diary. His face is thinner, however, his cheekbones more defined and his hair slightly longer as it curls around his ears in that familiar part. He's Tom Riddle, handsome and haughty...but _older_.

_A very powerful glamor,_ Harry concludes, his heart rate speeding up. But why? For what purpose?

Then he looks into Voldemort' eyes.

They are...strange. And _bright_ as they look on him, as though he is only thing in the world - the only thing that matters. Voldemort looks at him like that, when they're on the battlefield and their wands are raised...but the Dark Lord's eyes don't _shine._ Yet the boy before Harry is staring at him like Harry's father gazed at his mother in the old photographs, and it is discomfiting - shocking - enough that Harry drops his eyes, his brows furrowed.

"Harry."

He hears a trace of Tom Riddle's silken tone, hardly audible behind the hoarse whisper that is again unnervingly human. Suddenly, Harry is confused, an emotion he has no patience for in the face of such exhaustion, and without looking up he blurts,

"Just do it."

There is a pause.

"What?" Voldemort asks, with what sounds like genuine shock.

"Kill me," he says wearily, looking up into Tom Riddle's wide gray eyes, then down to the yew wand held loosely in his long fingers. When their gazes lock again, Harry whispers, "Go ahead. But this isn't the end, Tom. There'll be others. You haven't won yet."

He uses Voldemort's given name just to irritate the other before he's killed, but instead Voldemort _shivers_ at the word, as though overcome by something Harry doesn't understand.

"Oh, Harry," he breathes, and now he's advancing, instead of raising his wand like Harry expects him to. "You really think I would..."

Then he's kicking the unconscious Bellatrix aside with a casualness that reminds Harry of who he is, and - and _kneeling_ before him...

Harry blinks, dazed by the proximity of Lord Voldemort' s face to his own, by the fact that the most arrogant being to ever walk the earth has just allowed his knees to touch it. His world is suddenly narrowed down to gleaming gray eyes; they shine, but with something other than what filled James Potter's eyes when he looked at his wife. No...there is...a _fragility_ there, reminiscent of the madness that lives in Bellatrix Lestrange' s eyes, accompanied by a hunger Harry finds he does not want comprehend.

"Voldemort?" he finds himself asking hesitantly, his nails digging into the cool soil beneath him.

The lips so close to his curl in a strange smile.

"Tom," the man corrects. And then Harry notices it: the small, shining contraption dangling from Tom Riddle's neck.

_A Time-Turner. _

Harry locks eyes with the young Voldemort. _Oh my God._

It is suddenly hard to breathe. His mind floods through a thousand reasons as to how this isn't possible_ \- time-turners can only go backwards - _and he wonders for the first time if this isn't all just some terrible dream; Harry will wake up, and Hermione will be arguing with Ron about his recklessness again, and Ginny will be humming softly to herself, running her fingers through his hair as she wishes him good morning -

But that brief fantasy is ended abruptly with Tom Riddle's hand on his cheek, _touching_ him - as though he were a lover, rather than Harry's most hated enemy. Harry is so shocked by the man's audacity that he does nothing to stop it, his mouth hanging open stupidly. He feels as though he's been transported to an alternate world, one where absolutely nothing makes sense. The Dark Lord's hands are exploring his face with a rapture that frightens Harry, fingers running over his eyelids and his brows and lingering uncomfortably on his lips, threading through his hair - like Ginny does, except harsher.

"I've missed you, Harry," Tom murmurs, resting his forehead against Harry's, who is by now convinced he has fallen unconscious and is having a very disturbing dream. "You've no idea how much."

"What are you doing?" Harry whispers, his body tense. He doesn't understand what it is Voldemort is after, and he wants badly to jerk away - but something tells him that such an action would be unwise. "What do you want?"

_Why did you save me?_

The question gives him pause. Now that he thinks about it, Harry realizes with a start that the person before him cannot possibly be the Voldemort he knows, or even Tom Riddle; Voldemort would not kill his own Death Eaters, or incapacitate his most trusted servant - not when they were so close to capturing The Boy Who Lived.

"That's right," Riddle mutters, seemingly to himself. "You don't...You don't know me yet. But you will," he says hurriedly, grabbing Harry's shoulder. "You will, I'll make sure of it. And this time," his voice quivers, "this time things will be different, I promise."

There is desperation in Riddle's voice; Harry is sure it shares an intimate connection with the fragility - bordering on madness - in this Riddle' s eyes. The other's hand is trembling violently where it rests on his cheek; he thinks there might be blood dried black to the skin there.

"London," Riddle says suddenly. "July 3rd of 1939. Go to Hyde Park, on Westminster. I'll be there, by the fountain. I'll be waiting for you."

He raises the stained hand to the time-turner, but he doesn't turn it; instead it comes to life immediately at his touch, and the air fills with the presence of strange magic - _old_ magic.

It glows brightly, enough that Harry has to close his eyes, just as the world around him becomes distorted and his body grows disconcertingly light. He wants to cry out, to shove Riddle away, but any protests are silenced as a soft mouth covers his own. Harry freezes, disbelieving; a warm tongue explores his mouth now, and he tastes a strange variant of _Coca-Cola_, of all things.

It takes Harry a moment to realize he is tasting this because he's kissing back, and the situation is so _wrong_ but it feels natural, too, like he's done this before, like he's supposed to -

The kiss turns bruising, then, and when Tom finally pulls away, crushing Harry to his chest, Harry is left gasping for breath. He allows the other to hold him, the blazing time-turner trapped between their bodies, and is wondering what is wrong with him when Tom buries his face in the crook of Harry's neck, rambling.

"I love you, I love you," he whispers, and Harry almost has a heart attack. "I'm sorry, love, I promise, you'll be safe this time, you'll be safe..."

Tom Riddle leans back and presses his forehead again to an utterly baffled Harry Potter. "Just stay with me." he pleads, looking him in the eyes.

"...Okay," Harry answers, and it is as though someone else says the words. He is dimly aware of magic flaring in the air, and something warm fills his body, thrumming in his chest and pulsing through his scar, wrapping around his being like a chain. Riddle looks relieved - _triumphant_ \- and some of his distress appears to ebb.

"Don't leave," he whispers, and there is a curious weight behind those words. "Never leave me, Harry, and you'll be safe."

The light from the time-turner becomes blinding, then. Harry turns away, witnessing from the corner of a squinting eye as Riddle _fades,_ the hands disappearing from his face and arm and the sorrowful gray eyes shimmering like water before vanishing. The loss that floods him at the sight is inexplicable and entirely distressing, but he hardly has time to be worried before he experiences the extremely uncomfortable sensation of being ripped from space.

_Wonderful_, he thinks dryly, and the world blurs into nothing as Harry Potter is sent hurtling once again through time.

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_**First posted Harry Potter fic - hope you liked!**_


	2. II: for the greater good

**_Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, and am writing this purely for fun._**

**_A/N: Thanks for all the support, it's much appreciated! Hope you like._**

**_*Edit: As I've admitted to reviewers, I only have a vague idea as of now as to where I'm going with this, so feel free to pm me with suggestions - I'll consider them! _**

**_And thank you, anonymous reviewers, you're appreciated, too._**

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Chapter 2

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_"Why it's simply impassible!"_

_"Why, don't you mean impossible?"_

_"No, I do mean impassible. (chuckles) Nothing's impossible!" _

_\- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures In Wonderland_

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**°° In Wonderland °°**

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He wakes to the sound of laughter.

"Oi," a gruff voice says, and the sharp kick to his side makes Harry start, his eyes snapping open and his muscles tensing as his brain switches from sleep-induced fog to high alert.

_Have they discovered us?_ he wonders, his hand going to the wand under his pillow. But there is no wand, or even a pillow - his nails scrape only a cold, hard street; Harry lifts his head from the filthy cobblestones, dazed.

_This isn't the Room of Requirement_, he thinks, blinking owlishly. Rather than the large spacious room that has been home to him for the past year or so, Harry appears to have woken up in...in a _city...?_

He hears rumbling cars and the loud buzz of many voices at once, is assaulted by the light of the bright blue sky overhead, and a low, confused sound escapes his lips.

_But how...?_

The pungent stench of tobacco and some other unpleasant odor mingle together and fill his nose with the most terrible smell, and his mind clears a little as he squints up at the pug-faced man and giggling women who loom over him.

The man is scowling down at Harry, who is now struggling to sit up, a dark pipe held between his lips.

"A tramp, are you?" he sneers.

Harry ignores him; he is far more interested in his new surroundings. His mind...his mind feels...sluggish, as though weighed down by some force of which he is ignorant. He's sure he's forgetting something...

He looks around at the old-fashioned cars, at the women with their neat dresses and coats, and the men, with their wool suits and parted hairstyles and caps. They bustle down the narrow streets, seemingly without a care in the world - as if the most terrible dark wizard in history is not out and about and ruining lives...

...Why does that thought leave him so cold?

He feels as though he has gone mad.

He sits there, minutely, on the pavement, just beside a rather expensive-looking restaurant, as the man, who is apparently of some stature, glares disapprovingly down at him and the women continue to giggle at what he assumes is his ragged appearance. Harry cannot find it within himself to care.

He's too busy trying to understand what he's stumbled into, now, his brain moving terribly slow as he attempts to put the pieces together. He - he thinks he might be in London - but a very _different_ London, one in which the people dress in a manner reminiscent of the early nineteenth century and move with a lightness that Harry, after struggling to survive for over a year, finds wrong.

"Well, get on, go," the man is ordering, taking the pipe from his lips. Harry stares at him, his mind far away.

"What?" he asks absently.

"I said get on," the man hisses, prompting Harry to wonder what he could have possibly done to cause a stranger to look at him in such a way. "I'll not have ragged little tramps loitering around my favorite restaurant. It's bad for business. Now go!"

_Tramp? _Harry wonders, as the stranger attempts to shoo him away. He feels he should be offended, but honestly his mind is too far away right now for the man's words to have any effect.

He is missing something, and it is _bothering_ him, the strange lag of his thoughts. He feels like an addict just after the high, when it all comes crashing down...Blinking rapidly, Harry tries to recall what led him to this place - the pavement of a rather retro-looking London - but when he closes his eyes, nothing comes to mind.

_I must remember _something, he thinks, through the rather heavy haze_. I can't stay here...Hogwarts. I must return to Hogwarts._

Ron and Hermione and Ginny need him. He is the leader of Hogwarts's resistance, the only thing stopping Voldemort from taking the castle, Harry's home. He must find his way back there as soon as possible...

Just as Harry resolves to do this, he becomes aware of an odd tugging sensation from somewhere deep within him. It is faint, but insistent, and, now that he notices it, rather difficult to ignore. His scar throbs with pain.

_"Never leave me, Harry."_

Harry grimaces, befuddled. There is an odd chill snaking up his spine at the words, spoken so softly - and with such desperation, like a child seeking assurance from his parents when afraid...

The pain spikes, and Harry presses a dirty palm to his scar with a hiss. In his mind he sees, as clear as a photo, a young man on his knees before him, his hair dark and his face drawn, and his gray eyes bright and filled with - filled with -

Remembrance slams into Harry with the force of a bulleting train, and he hunches over, a strangled gasp escaping his lips.

"Boy?" the man ventures, but Harry isn't listening. He climbs to his feet on shaking legs, dimly aware of something clutched in his left hand, and stumbles down the street, ignoring the man's calls.

His limbs still ache terribly, but he forces himself to go on, driven by the need to _move_. The tugging sensation has grown stronger; however, it is nothing to the tidal wave his memories have brought crashing down upon him, suffocating him, freezing the air in his lungs and spearing mercilessly through his heart.

The numbness - the blissful ignorance - has been ripped away with the recollection of Tom Riddle's stormy eyes, dark with despair and hunger, bright with hope and -

Harry staggers into a very narrow, very dark alleyway, ignoring the disgusted looks shot his way. There is a garbage heap further down, and the moment he collapses down next to it, the last of his disorientation fades and Harry Potter bursts into tears, his palms pressed to his eyes and his fingers digging into his scalp as he is assaulted with wave after wave of realization and loss and hopelessness - and_ pain._

And it is the worst thing he has ever experienced, sitting there, his mind filled with the smiling faces of those he loves, those he cherishes, those he will never see in this world, again. Harry sits there and sobs pitifully, thinking he understands now, why people end their lives rather than face this - this misery, this all-consuming agony that seems ready to tear him apart.

With Sirius's death, there had been _rage_ \- rage at Voldemort and Bellatrix and Dumbledore and himself.

With Dumbledore's death there had been sorrow, a sense of futility.

Harry thought himself familiar with all these things. But they assault him now with a greater magnitude than he is prepared for, and as his body trembles uncontrollably he wishes he were with them, with Ron and Hermione and _Ginny _and all the others who have died for him - The _Chosen_ One - _The Boy Who Lived -_

And the hate comes roaring back, _consuming_ him - Harry feels as though he's about to explode with the force of it, with the strength of his rage.

He hates Hermione for sacrificing herself - hates Ron for sticking by him when the others had lost hope - hates Ginny for humming softly in the morning and carding her fingers tenderly through his hair, for whispering to him of their future together when it all got to be too much, for _loving_ him -

And it is at the thought of her, with her flaming red hair and her bright grin, that Harry nearly breaks.

Nearly.

Eventually...eventually...his body stops trembling. His legs unfold. His eyes dry.

He looks up at the afternoon sky.

_"I believe in you, Harry," _Ginny'd said to him, one spring day long ago.

_"Why?"_ he'd asked.

_"Because I love you,"_ she'd answered, kissing his scar. _"And love is the greatest magic. Ron and Hermione and I - we'll be there for you, Harry. We'll always be with you, wherever you go. What's power in comparison?"_

With those words settling in his heart, Harry breathes.

He imagines that day as it was, on the grounds of Hogwarts, Ginny sitting beside him underneath the shade of a tree by the lake, the sweet scent of freshly risen flowers in his nostrils, her voice soft in his ear, her hair tickling his cheek. Perhaps his love had not shriveled and died.

_"We'll always be with you, wherever you go."_

_You're with me_, Harry thinks, clutching his chest. _You're with me. Please stay. I can't do this alone._

He must...he must defeat Voldemort. He must return to Hogwarts, and give his loved ones proper burials.

He must save those who remain.

His shoulders almost sag at the weight of the knowledge. Hero, Savior, Chosen One...

Harry is suddenly very tired, and it is only Ginny's words that make him stand. His legs are stiff and aching, his scar still throbbing along with that insistent tug, but Harry pays no mind to it.

He has a job to do, one last adventure before he goes to rest. Ron and Hermione won't be with him this time.

_They are_, he reminds himself. _And Ginny, too._

And it is then, as Harry prepares to Disapparate, that he looks down and sees it: _the time-turner!_

It glimmers innocently by his foot, half-obscured by an empty, old-fashioned Coca-Cola bottle. Harry stoops to pick it up; it must have been the thing clutched in his hand, earlier...

He turns it this way and that way, wondering at his own stupidity. How could he have forgotten so easily about Tom Riddle and his strange, impossible time-turner? Had he been so consumed by his own misery that he'd forgotten the young Voldemort had _activated_ it_?_

He kissed me, Harry remembers, his empty hand clenching into a white-knuckled fist. He told me...

What was Tom Riddle playing at? How had he gotten this time-turner, one cloaked in old magic, and activated it at his touch? Why had he saved Harry, forced him into a foreign time, crushed him to his chest and whispered of his _love_ and his _apologies - ?_

_What year am I in?_ he wonders suddenly. It is a strange thought, jarring, even for him, as a wizard -

To be able to travel back _years..._

Harry's breath catches. His heart leaps to his throat. He stares at the little device, his hands trembling again.

To be able travel forward **years...**

He could do anything. He could go back to before things got so bad, could save Ginny and Ron and Hermione and Luna and Neville and Sirius and Fred and Remus and Tonks and Dumbledore -

And James and Lily Potter, he realizes, breathing hard. He could save his parents, stop Voldemort before he even got started...

Harry's head feels terribly light all of a sudden, his chest ready to burst from excitement and exhilaration and _relief_, crushing relief, because everything will be alright again -

But the joyful tears turn into ones of frustration as the device remains unresponsive. It does not activate at his touch, and he doesn't have a wand to cast spells with, anymore. He studies its surface, tries to figure out how Tom Riddle got it to work, and finds nothing.

_No_, Harry thinks. Please.

How cruel could the universe be, to grant him such brilliant hope, only to have it just as quickly snatched away?

But no matter what he tries, nothing happens, and eventually Harry flings it at the opposite wall with all his strength, his face red with rage.

_"Fuck!"_

If there is a God, He must hate Harry Potter, for whatever reason. Not only has his life been reduced to shambles in the last day or so - he's stuck in the past, too. And he doesn't even have a wand!

_Wonderful! _

_"What have I done to you?!" _ Harry screams at the sky. The misery of earlier has been replaced with a familiar fury, and as he stands there, teeth gritted and fists clenched, it is an effort not to let it overtake him.

_Not again,_ he thinks, closing his eyes. _I have a job to do_.

And he _will_ do it. He will find a way to go and kill Voldemort, if it takes him -

_Wait. _

Harry opens his eyes.

His heart begins to pump furiously again as the seed of an idea starts to sprout in his mind.

_What year is it?_ he wonders again, picking up the time-turner. It is, predictably, unscathed. Stuffing it into his pocket, Harry pauses for a moment, considering, before rushing out of the alleyway on wobbling legs. He wipes half-heartedly at his ruined attire - jeans and a torn t-shirt, stained with dirt and blood - before searching for the nearest approachable person.

He ends up choosing an elderly man, short, thin, and wrinkled. He is reading the front page of the London newspaper, his expression relaxed, and Harry approaches the bench he's seated on with forced casualty, discreetly rubbing the redness from his eyes.

"Hello," he says softly, inwardly cringing at the hoarseness of his own voice. He sounds like he hasn't had water in days.

The man looks up, his expression surprised and vaguely suspicious.

"Afternoon," he grumbles politely, nodding once. There is a beat of silence. The old man studies Harry for a moment, eyes widening slightly, and Harry almost expects him to inquire as to why it is that he looks like he's just been violently assaulted. But the man only asks,

"Can I help you with something?"

Harry falters.

"Um," he starts awkwardly. He never has been good with people. "Could you...could you tell me the date, please, sir?"

"Oh! I suppose," the man agrees, glancing back down at the newspaper. "Let's see...ah, it is - July 3rd."

He nods at Harry. Harry swallows.

"And...and the year, sir?"

The man gives him a strange look. "1939."

Harry smiles weakly and thanks the man before quickly walking away, his eyes glued to the pavement and blood roaring in his ears.

_1939._

He stops to lean against a wall, ignoring the looks he receives.

"_London_," Riddle had said, in his soft, urgent voice. "_July 3rd, 1939. Go to Hyde Park, on Westminster. I'll be there, by the fountain. I'll be waiting for you."_

Harry releases a ragged breath. Tom Riddle had sent him here for reasons yet unknown, before fading before his very eyes. Could he really be waiting for him? What does he want?

_Why would he send me to his own time?_

It makes no sense.

Harry's chest tightens with disappointment yet again. He had been rejuvenated by the idea of finding and killing a young Voldemort, thereby preventing every tragedy that had ever befallen him and his loved ones - but if Voldemort is already waiting for him...

Harry curses, loudly and harshly enough that several people turn, sending him appalled looks.

_I don't even have a **wand!**_

He would have to correct that, _immediately_.

But then he remembers he doesn't have any money, or at least any form of identification, considering his parents haven't even been born yet. Gringotts might accept blood identification - he is a Potter - but he fears taking money from the vault of a family as old as the Potters will draw unnecessary attention...

_Bad things happen to wizards who meddle with time,_ Hermione had once said, an eternity ago, and the words send a shiver of foreboding through him.

_I must be careful,_ Harry decides. _But Voldemort..._

Surely the mysterious forces of Time wouldn't punish him too harshly for disposing of the most powerful dark wizard in history? He'd be saving countless lives.

_I'm not meddling with history,_ Harry tells himself, as he resumes walking. _I'm correcting it_.

Reassured, he starts to plan.

* * *

Fifteen minutes later, Harry stands across the street from a sign proclaiming Hyde Park in bold, black letters. He is agitated. On a whim, he had followed the tugging sensation, and found that, should he turn in the opposite direction of where it pointed him and begin walking, the discomfort grew - progressing from a mild ache in his chest to a maddening, full-body _itch._

Harry, utterly baffled, had resisted for as long as he could, but eventually the constant itching became unbearable; after ten minutes of walking, he'd given in and turned around. The results were immediate - with each step he complied, the discomfort lessened, and he feels hardly anything now except for the faint but insistent pull and the pulsing of his scar.

Harry scowls at the sign, his face pallid with nervousness and fear. On the way here, after going over all of his memories (even the painful ones) of the past day or so, he'd concluded that Tom Riddle had somehow presented a magical contract of sorts, and Harry...Harry had foolishly fallen into it. He curses himself again upon recalling the magic that had flared in the air upon his agreement, unintentional though it was

_"Just stay with me."_

A shiver runs through him. Has his entirely accidental agreement bonded him to Voldemort for** life? **Would he feel the unbearable itch when hiding from the Dark Lord - when finally_ killing him?_

The possibility is too horrific to dwell on.

Thinking back, Harry's not even sure why he'd responded with that word, 'okay.' He can't remember what he was thinking at the time - Tom Riddle's eyes had been so strange, gray and bright and dark with things that Harry could not - _cannot_ \- fathom.

He clenches his fists.

The Dark Lord had knelt before him in the Forbidden Forest with the face of a young man - Tom Riddle. But this Tom Riddle, though still very young, had looked tired and desperate and sad. He had begged the Boy Who Lived - his _nemesis_ \- to stay with him, for some bizarre reason.

Then he had pressed his lips to Harry's in a soft then searing kiss, and Harry - _Harry had kissed __back._

He wants to retch violently at the memory of it: a warm tongue exploring his mouth with unprecedented fervor, long fingers fisting in his hair, the taste of something similar to but not _quite_ Coca-Cola.

He had kissed back, had not pushed Riddle away, and the only possible explanation Harry can summon for this is that he was not in his right mind. Indeed, how could he, Harry Potter, while perfectly sane, feel as though locking lips with young _Voldemort_ was _natural_, as he had at the time?

It certainly isn't, Harry knows, and the whole incident is one he will carry to his grave - however soon that might be.

Tugging his coat tighter about himself (he lifted it from a bench), Harry takes a deep breath, gathers his Gryffindor courage, and crosses the street. He_ is_ afraid, he can admit that to himself. He hasn't brought a weapon, mainly because he wasn't able to find one, but he hopes he won't need one, anyway.

His entire decision to come here hinges entirely on the hunch that this Tom Riddle isn't out to kill him, for reasons he intends to discover, shortly. It's a risk - a big one - but Harry will take it. He needs answers.

Besides, he's no Hermione, but Harry doubts Riddle would go to all the trouble of bringing him here, after murdering a decent amount of his future self's servants, only to murder _him_.

It makes no _sense._

And so, with much false bravado and darting green eyes, Harry throws caution to the wind and does his best to look unassuming as he strolls through the park. It's pretty outside, for once - and peaceful_._ There are children running about, laughing and hooting and cheering, and underneath the beaming sun, Harry finds it easy to pretend that the last year or so - full of hurting and hiding and terror - has been nothing more than a nightmare...

It will be, soon, Harry promises himself, as he spots the fountain, great and elegant at the center of the park. Soon, all of the nightmarish things he and his friends have experienced will be nothing more than that: nightmares. After today, Harry will fix _everything_.

_I promise,_ he says silently, to those people forever bound to him. He starts toward the fountain, searching intently for a familiar tall, dark-haired form.

_I won't fail you, this time._

But when he arrives at the fountain, pretending to admire the glittering coins scattered in the water, Harry does not see Tom Riddle. He sees an elderly couple talking quietly, a lonely-looking woman staring into the water, and a few children throwing pennies into its depths - but no Voldemort. Scowling deeply, Harry rubs at his scar. It's positively pulsing, now, but not with pain, oddly enough.

And the tugging sensation has stopped completely, is replaced with a disturbingly pleasant warmth on his insides. The scowl, despite Harry's best efforts, slips from his face. He stares into the water, his nails digging hard enough into his palms to draw blood. It seeps from between his fingers, falling to the lush green grass.

He hears a sharp intake of breath.

Turning to the source of the sound, Harry finds himself looking down into the small, thin face of a young boy, who is staring up at him with a discomfiting - familiar - sort of rapture.

Harry looks into his eyes, and stills.

"Hello," he forces out, after a pregnant pause.

The boy blinks owlishly at him, unmoving. He is a beautiful child, dark waves of hair framing a pale, round face that already shows the signs of one destined to grow up to be classically handsome. But Harry already knows what will become of that face -

"Hello," the boy returns politely, absently. His voice is high and small, his body long but very thin. He can't be more than eleven years old.

He is the Dark Lord.

Green clashes with gray. Harry's scar is pulsing now in a rapid rhythm, like a second heart. Adrenaline floods his veins, and it is a serious effort to keep still, to not stumble backwards or lunge forward and...

Shock and confusion and hatred are fighting for dominance within Harry's chest - letting out a shaky breath, he stares unblinkingly into the strange eyes of Tom Riddle and rasps,

"What are you doing here?"

_Why are you eleven years old?_

Riddle drops his eyes to Harry's white-knuckled fists. There is no malice in his expression, no sickening smirk on his lips, no frightening desperation -

"I was waiting for someone," he says softly, and Harry unconsciously steps back. In his mind rings the hoarse voice of that sad, desperate man in the Forbidden Forest:

_"I'll be there, by the fountain. I'll be waiting for you."_

He feels overwhelmed. Cheated. This is not the Tom Riddle he knows or expected, but a boy_, a child_ \- slightly younger than the one from the Pensieve, and without that hardness in his face. Harry came here for answers - an end to everything - but now he is left with more questions, more frustration, and overall a hardening resolve -

_I have to kill him._

The knowledge sickens Harry, especially as the boy raises his head again, gazing at him with such fascination and..._hope?._.. in his wide gray eyes. He wonders, his jaw clenching, if the other feels it, too - the accidental bond (_both__ of them_) that ties the two of them together.

The pleasant warmth has not faded, despite Harry's grim resolve. Blood dries on his palms as he whispers,

"Really? That's funny. I was looking for someone."

It's not funny, not funny at all, because he is about to do a terrible, terrible thing, regardless of how many people he saves in the process, regardless of who it is the boy before him will become. He feels weary, sick - he is about to kill a _child_ -

Tom Riddle pauses, oblivious to the sudden turmoil within the other male, his hands wringing in a way Harry might've deemed nervous, were he dealing with any other being.

"Oh," Riddle says eventually, his eyes darting away in an almost..._shy_ manner. "Have you - have you found them?"

With a heavy heart, Harry Potter answers, "Yes."

The word hangs between them, heavy, but for different reasons. As Harry resigns himself to murder_ (for the greater good, this is Voldemort, you must, you **promised**),_ Tom Riddle's face lights up in way he thought the Dark Lord - past and future - incapable of.

Suddenly the boy is leaning towards him, his entire body trembling with what Harry recognizes confusedly as excitement.

"I think I've found them, too," he whispers. "The person I was waiting for."

His eyes are so very bright in that moment, searching Harry's own with such intensity; Harry sees no trace of the sullen, suspicious boy from the Pensieve, no trace of the unfeeling, serpentine monster who has made his entire life a living nightmare.

It's not fair, he thinks, his jaw ticking.

After everything he's been through and witnessed and _done_, it's not fair that he now has to choose between saving his loved ones and the life of a seemingly innocent child...

_But he's not innocent_, Harry reminds himself._ He's already done...some rather awful things..._

"I'm glad," he whispers back, forcing a smile. He's sure Riddle will see right through it, but if anything, the boy looks more elated. Standing, he moves into Harry's personal space - he already comes up nearly to Harry's shoulder - and the other is again confused at the boy's behavior. Why does he look so...happy, staring up at him? So...relieved?

Had the boy really been expecting him?

Harry searches enthralled gray eyes, but sees no triumph or smugness there. There is instead genuine joy.

He doesn't understand it, and his puzzlement grows as Riddle raises a pale, shaking hand.

"So it is you, then," he murmurs, seemingly awed now. "_Father_."

And Harry, struck speechless, does nothing as Riddle throws himself at him, bony arms snaking around his torso in a surprisingly strong embrace. His brain appears to have screeched to a halt, stopped by the sudden increase of the pleasant warmth on his insides, brought on apparently by the boy's presence, and the lightness of his head.

_Father. He thinks..._

Harry's mouth opens and closes, his scar _humming_ rather than throbbing, as he tries to make sense of what is happening.

_I am being embraced by Voldemort, who thinks I'm his father. _

How **_in the world_** has he arrived to that conclusion?

_Okay, we look alike_, Harry thinks, awkwardly returning the hug for reasons unknown to him. Riddle makes a startled sound, and his thin - vicelike - arms tighten around the older male. _But still. I'm eighteen years old. Common sense dictates that I could not possibly be his parent. We just met a minute ago, so why would he assume...? _

_Is he so desperate to believe...?_

Harry is unprepared for the pulse of pity he feels at the thought. Pursing his lips, he squashes it. The incredulity is giving way to resignation again; he cannot forget his resolve. He cannot forget what he stands to lose, if he doesn't follow through.

Dumbledore had once told him that love is the greatest magic, and murder the most evil crime a person could commit. What Harry is about to do is most certainly evil...but is it not for the greater good?

_I'm sorry I judged you, Dumbledore,_ he thinks, burying his face in Tom Riddle's hair.

This is going to be hardest thing he's ever had to do.

And as he pulls back, looking into the boy's wet eyes, Harry falters. For a moment, just a moment, he considers walking away. He could start a new life in which he is no longer the Chosen One, the famed Boy Who Lived, without the weight of a world on his shoulders...he could have _peace_.

But by doing so, he would be failing so many people. Family, friends, people who had lived and fought and died for him - for a prophecy, for a war that, in the future, would be lost, and at such _cost_...

_"I believe in you, Harry,"_ Ginny says, in his mind.

Harry imagines her as she is, flaming hair and blazing eyes and brave, brave heart. He smiles falsely down at Riddle, who will one day point his wand and end the life of another such woman - the flaming, blazing, lion-hearted Lily Potter.

A plan forming in his mind, he cards his fingers tenderly through the boy's soft waves and lies, "I've come for you, Tom."

"To save me?" the boy whispers, his gray eyes so wide, so filled with _hope_. He is thinking of the old orphanage, probably.

"To save you," Harry agrees gently. He is speaking of an entirely different matter.

The boy lets out a shaky breath. He allows Harry to untangle himself, immediately forcing their hands together instead, and a surge of electricity assaults Harry, tingling throughout his entire body. He ignores it, though Riddle gasps, and says quietly,

"Why don't you come with me?"

Riddle pauses. He opens his mouth, looking dazed, before darting a glance behind him. Harry follows his gaze.

The other children gathered around the fountain, earlier, have wandered away towards a plump, older woman that Harry recognizes with a start as Mrs. Cole, the matron of Riddle's orphanage. Many of the other children appear to be gravitating towards her as well, meaning it's time to leave.

_Shit_.

If Riddle goes back to the orphanage, now, there's no telling when another opportunity to get him alone will arise, and it'll be much harder to sneak into the orphanage and kill him than to just lead him off somewhere secluded and use the Killing Curse -

Wait.

_With **what wand?**_ Harry realizes suddenly. His mouth falls open as he stares down at Riddle, feeling like a complete and utter fool. How could he, a seasoned soldier, have forgotten his lack of a weapon? What would he have used, had he succeeded in getting Riddle alone? A _muggle_ weapon?

No, Harry thinks, nauseated. Not on a child.

But then, what can he do? He had come here unarmed in the first place because he'd expected an older, cunning Riddle. One apparently...fixed on him and in the mood for a deal.

He hadn't expected a child.

Swallowing, Harry's mind races. He looks down at Riddle, who looks scared for some reason.

The expression grows sharper when Harry pulls his hand away.

"What are you -"

Harry kneels, interrupting the boy's shrill tone. "It's okay, Tom. Go with your matron, back to the orphanage."

Riddle looks betrayed. Something ugly flashes across his face, but it is gone so quickly Harry wonders if he didn't imagine it. The younger male opens his mouth, his eyes storm-colored, a barrage of words looking ready to spill out, but Harry touches his face. He forces himself to forget for a moment that this is Lord Voldemort.

"Hush," he whispers, and is oddly saddened at the way the boy stills at his touch. He wonders if this is the first time someone's touched Tom Riddle's face without the intent to hurt it.

_It's not entirely your fault,_ he thinks. _What you become._

And then he shoves that thought away.

"Don't worry, Tom. I'll come back for you, tonight. And you won't ever have to see that place - or those people - ever again."

Riddle is silent for a long time. His eyes - _bright, again_ \- pierce Harry's, whose scar sings.

Leaning into Harry's touch, he whispers, "Do you promise?"

"I promise," Harry answers, mentally going over his plans. "Look for me by midnight. I'll find you, like I did today, and we'll be together...father and son. But you have to go with your matron, first, Tom."

The lie is acrid on his tongue, but it gets the desired results; Riddle nods vigorously, clearly satisfied, if no longer overjoyed, and he hugs Harry tightly, whispering goodbye, before turning and walking away.

He joins the matron, who shoots the boy a look of stark distaste, and soon the large group is off, presumably back to the orphanage. Riddle glances back at Harry the whole time, who waves until they disappear from view.

Scar aching, Harry rubs wearily at his eyes. He is suddenly aware of a familiar _itch_, and he scowls upon remembering the other side effect of this new bond. The sensation grows stronger with every passing minute; after a few, Harry is growling, leaning heavily against the lip the fountain, his face red and his eyes squeezed shut.

"I won't leave you," he blurts, burying his face in his hands. "There's something I have to_ do..."_

And, much to Harry's surprise, the itching ceases.

Lifting his head, he waits for another wave of intense discomfort, but it doesn't come.

Huh.

_Well, good,_ Harry thinks, straightening. At least he knows for sure, now, that it's not an Unbreakable Vow he's bound by; one would hardly be so lenient.

But his relief pales in the remembrance of his task. He must kill Riddle, soon, before he gains contact with the magical world (and Harry hopes he hasn't already). For that, he needs a wand.

And for _that_, he needs money.

_Time for a trip to Gringotts_, Harry thinks with a sigh. He's going to have to take a risk. He doubts fifty years have softened the goblins any...

Shoulders sagging, he touches the time-turner in his pocket.

Tonight, Tom Riddle will die at his hand.

Harry closes his eyes.

He sees, at first, a thin boy with hope in his gaze, then a young man with sorrow in it, then a monster with hate gleaming in the depths of his bloody eyes. He sees Ron falling, and Hermione turning on her heel, and Ginny, lost amongst the chaos, her red hair _(smells like apples and cinnamon, tickles his nose) _a seemingly unreachable beacon in the sea of swarming Death Eaters.

He sees Sirius falling through the Veil, hears Lily Potter screaming, feels the stiff skin of Cedric Diggory's cooling body - and Luna's and Neville's and far too many others' to count. He sees death and feels pain and knows suffering.

Harry Potter opens his eyes, and feels old.

He will kill Tom Riddle, tonight. Not because it's right, he realizes that, now - but for _them_. Because he is selfish. Because he wants to see Hermione frown disapprovingly at him, and hear Ron laugh, and feel Ginny's kiss. He wants baby Teddy, tucked safely away with his grandmother, to grow up with the love of his parents.

No, what he's about to do is evil.

But Harry will do it, all the same.

_For the greater good._

* * *

_**A/N: Don't expect such quick updates. I'm just currently really excited about this story.**_

_**Also, no, Tom does not go around assuming men who vaguely look like him are his father. There's a reason he gravitated towards Harry. **_

**_Constructive criticism is welcomed!_**


	3. III: everything's got a moral

_**A/N: Wow! I'm really happy people like this so far. Thanks readers, and everybody who favorited, follows, or reviewed this work! I appreciate it. **_

_**So, uh, I really slaved over this chapter, and I'm nervous about it. If there's anything you think I could improve on or got wrong (haven't read the actual books in a long time, I admit) it helps a lot to let me know. **_

_**Enjoy!**_

* * *

Chapter 3

* * *

_"Tut, tut, child!" said the Duchess. "Everything's got a moral, if only you can find it."_

_\- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures In Wonderland_

* * *

Tom Riddle understands, for the first time in his short life, the meaning of the word 'bliss.'

He is practically floating the entire trip back to the orphanage, his hands in his pockets, his eyes bright. He has just met his _father_, the man who _sired_ him, and he is not what Tom imagined him to be, but _more_. The boy's mind is drowned with endless replays of the encounter; the man's mannerisms, the way he stood, the way he spoke and smelled. He remembers his father's promise, his bewitching green eyes - and _glows_. The other children cast him wary looks but know better than to ask him any questions; they give him a wide berth as they walk.

_Insects_, he thinks, lifting his chin.

They certainly scuttle like ants, particularly fat Billy Stubbs and his friend, Eric Whalley. Billy keeps glancing back at Tom from his place by the drunk at the front of the little group, his face pale and scared.

Tom makes sure to meet his eyes, his mouth curling in a smirk. Billy sees it and stumbles.

As the other children laugh at the reddening boy, Tom's mood soars even higher. Soon he'll be free of the surrounding vermin, of scrubbing floors and tasteless meals and _Wool Orphanage._

_Father..._

He could almost skip.

His mood is not even dampened when the drunk assigns he and Billy mopping duty of the upstairs floor. Billy avidly protests, earning him a wonderfully sharp slap, and he spends the rest of the time mopping in silence, casting Tom nervous glances. Tom hums to himself, mostly ignoring the other boy. It's hard to believe he was ever scared of him - or anyone in this dump.

_He's learned_, Tom thinks contentedly, catching the other's sunken eyes. _They all have._

Billy shivers, turning away. Tom replaces the mop in the dirty water of the bucket, his smirk growing wider.

_Are you afraid I'll do to you what I did to your rabbit?_

In his mind the memory of the rodent's demise is still fresh; the rush of power, the rabbit's squeal as an invisible force tugged it from its cage, Billy's eyes wide and traumatized upon discovering its stiff body, hanging from the rafters. A shrill scream.

Who knew big, tough, Billy Stubbs could cry so pitifully?

Laughter bubbles in his chest, but Tom suppresses it. _Composure is key._

Yes, they had all learned quickly who was boss - and if they hate him, well...

It doesn't matter, Tom tells himself, at supper time. He sits alone at his usual table amidst the chatter of the others, a book in one hand. It's open, but he's too distracted to read much of it, his leg bouncing and his fingers dancing across the table in barely suppressed excitement.

Composure, he reminds himself. But he can't seem to reign in on his emotions.

_Father_. His hands quiver at the memory of the man's arms around him, holding him tight in Tom's first real hug. He has never understood until that moment the point of the things. But warmth had flared in his cold insides at the other's touch, revealing to Tom a connection deeper than bone between them, solidifying his belief that the man is his father.

_"Look for me by midnight. I'll find you, like I did today, and we'll be together...father and son."_

A grin flashes across Tom's face before he can stop it. Nearby, Amy Benson moans softly, and Dennis Bishop begins to weep. He pauses, wondering disgustedly at their behavior, only to remember that he had worn the exact same grin - if a shade more sinister - a little under a year ago, when leading them into that cave by the sea...

Ah. Now that was entertaining. Tom's favorite memory before today, actually.

His reminiscings are interrupted as the usual bowl of gray slop is placed in front of him. Tom pushes it away without his usual scowl, ignoring the drunk' s demands that he eat it.

Soon I'll be free of this place, he thinks, and even the cow's shrill tone is not enough to quell his joy. Ten years within these dingy walls, trapped with these weak, snivelling vermin - well, he is meant for greater things -

_Soon..._

"Tom Riddle!" the drunk yells, and now the whole room is silent, watching. Despite his established rule over them all, Tom does not often butt heads with the matron, deeming it more trouble than its worth; yet he openly defies her now. They watch, wondering what will happen.

Continuing to calmly ignore her, Tom looks down at the words of his book without really seeing them. He does not have to listen to her, not anymore. Not ever again.

_My father is coming for me._

There is a movement to his right, and the sound of a palm hitting flesh cuts the air. Tom's head swings to the side with the force of the blow. He sits there, stunned, his cheek stinging.

Any remaining chatter dies abruptly; the room is as silent now as the theater during the climax of some drama, every eye fixed on Tom Riddle.

Mrs. Cole looms over him, breathing heavily in her anger - and fear, yes, it's there - her face blotchy, as red as his. She has not slapped him since he was very young. She's never had to.

"I don't know what's gotten into you, boy," she says loudly. "But you won't disrespect me that way! You listen when an adult is speaking, do you understand?"

Tom does not answer immediately. He blinks, and he blinks, as though trying to comprehend what's just happened, and then his gray eyes raise to Mrs. Cole's. They are cold, and hard. They are not the eyes of a child.

"Yes, Mrs. Cole," he answers, in a soft, icy tone.

The air, once stuffy and hot, grows frigid.

Nearby, Dennis bursts into tears again. Billy gets up and leaves the room. Goosebumps erupt across Mrs. Cole's skin as the boy stares up at her, his face as smooth and blank as a marble statue.

But there is something in his eyes - something ugly and monstrous; Mrs. Cole looks in them and sees what she has not wanted to before, what she's always ignored. Like when she heard Billy's shriek, and found his beloved rabbit swinging brokenly from the rafters. Or when she discovered Amy and Dennis in that cave, their expressions distorted from trauma, and Tom smiling, smiling, smiling.

_Freak, monster, devil. _The other children whisper these so often in her ears, and, staring into stormy gray - at the rage and frost and emptiness there - Mrs. Cole suddenly believes them.

Slowly, she backs away. There is something building in the air now, worse than tension; it crackles like electricity against the woman's skin, clawing up her spine, as turbulent and foreboding as Tom Riddle's eyes.

He lifts his chin at her retreat, like a prince would a peasant, his face still holding the strange lack of expression. The pressure is building and building -

"Go to your room," she whispers, her face white. "Now."

He stares at her, unmoving.

"Go!" she yells, gesturing sharply, just as the lone light bulb above her head shatters.

Mrs. Cole screams as the room is plunged in darkness. She's not hurt, Tom's not stupid, but she scrambles away as though she is, and the others begin to cry and shriek, too, clinging to each other. Dennis is sobbing pathetically in the arms of Amy, who watches Tom in the darkness, frozen. There is the scrape of chairs as some run from the room, abandoning supper in favor of perceived safety.

Tom sits, still staring. Mrs. Cole has staggered to her feet, now, her hair in disarray, her eyes bulging from their sockets but unable to look away. She grips the nearest table with white-knuckled fingers, looking quite like the mouse right before the snake strikes.

Silence hangs over the room like a shroud, broken only by Dennis's terrified whimpers.

Tom's gaze is locked with Mrs. Cole's, who is trembling violently as that strange malevolence licks angrily at her skin, rolling off of him in icy waves. Her ragged breaths puff visibly out into the air, it's so cold.

"If you ever touch me again, I'll kill you," Tom says quietly. Mrs. Cole looks into his eyes - _dark, empty, something missing in them, not the eyes of a child_ -and believes him.

The stormy gray hues are pinning her to the spot, the unnameable pressure wounding tighter and tighter, freezing the blood in her veins -

And then he looks away, his gaze sweeping across the room, his mouth tightening as he takes in Dennis Bishop, who has slid from his seat by now, curled under the table and still crying hysterically.

"Be quiet," Tom orders, his voice whip-like. Dennis's mouth abruptly snaps shut, but the shaking grows worse.

Satisfied, he stands and gathers his book, gaze briefly meeting Mrs. Cole's, who has sagged against the table. His mouth twitches downwards, hell still raging in his eyes, and without warning the bowl of slop begins to rise, floating in the air as though possessed.

A choked sound of surprise escapes the woman's lips at the sight. The pressure intensifies, and she cowers with a cry as the bowl flies at her, shattering at her feet and splattering gray slop all over her form.

When Mrs. Cole looks up again, trembling as violently as Dennis, it is to see Tom leaving the room, his back as straight as ever.

As the sound of creaking stairs reaches her ears, she pulls herself to her feet, wheezing loudly. She must call the police! She must...!

"It won't do you any good," a soft voice says from behind her. Mrs. Cole stops in her attempt to reach the phone in the sitting room. Amy Benson is curled with Dennis under the table, staring at the doorway where Riddle disappeared.

"No one will believe you," she continues quietly, and her tone is so even, so _sure_, that Mrs. Cole shakes her head, still covered in slop. She does not move to get the phone again, however.

"You don't know that," she says feebly, her voice barely above a whisper.

Amy looks at her. She has the eyes of one scarred, and unwillingly Mrs. Cole remembers that day in the cave, the look of mute terror on the girl's face. Even now, months later, no one knows what really happened, to change the two so drastically. Dennis could be mean and disliked Tom, but there was a charming boldness in him. Amy was blunt, and petty. But she used to smile a lot.

Now there are no more smiles, from either of them. Only fear.

"I do," the child says softly.

:::::::::::::

_Composure is key_, he tells himself, over and over, his nails biting painfully into the palm of his free hand.

The pain helps to ground him, and by the Tom reaches his room, the rage has almost simmered down to anger.

_How dare she?_ A part of him roars, while the other works to control the power building at his fingertips, upsetting his surroundings in a frigid wind that ruffles his clothes and hair. The earlier bliss has given way to white-hot fury, one that not even the memory of the look on the old cow's face can soothe.

_How dare she, old filthy drunk - should've killed her - should've made her scream - !_

Nearby, hairline cracks begin to crawl up the surface of his window. His pillow explodes in a confusion of feathers. He can see his breath misting before him, and with clenched fists Tom forces himself to calm down.

_She is nothing,_ he tells himself. _Trash. As easy to cower as all the rest._

He knows that, if he doesn't reign in on his temper, something - or _someone_ \- is going to burn, and so Tom does his best to focus his attention on regaining himself. He breathes.

One day, Mrs. Cole will pay dearly for daring to strike him. But not tonight. No, tonight he has more important things to be concerned with.

Walking over to his wardrobe, he pushes aside frayed, secondhand clothing and retrieves his treasure box. Absently sealing the door with his power, he sits down on the lumpy bed, running his fingers tenderly across its surface before opening it and examining the trophies inside.

All of them - yo-yos and crayons and little soldiers and cards - have been collected over the years, mainly from the other children. Tom's not sure why he takes them, only that it gives him pleasure to do so, to see their faces twist with pain upon discovering prized possessions gone, stolen.

He...likes taking away their happiness.

It almost helps to fill the emptiness in his chest, the one that, until today, has eaten and eaten at him, like a black hole hovering constantly at the edge of his consciousness. A wall between him and the world.

But today, in his father's arms, that wall faded, just for a little while. He understood, in those brief moments, what he always perceived as silliness and stupidity in the people around him...

His chest was taut, with...something...

The world was bright.

And the connection between them, the one that alerted Tom to the man's approach in the first place, _blazed_; it was like when he uses his powers, only magnified times ten.

Wrapped in that hug, something clawed up Tom's throat, settled warm in the pit of his belly. He has not felt it since discovering his special abilities, and even then that was tempered with a darkness, a vow that no one would ever dare to harm him again.

But right then, in that moment -

He felt...joy. Exhilaration. Completion.

The latter in particular has solidified Tom's belief that the man he met at the park today is his father. How else can one explain this - this bond that simmered in him with the man's approach, as though they shared not only blood, but a _soul..._

_Midnight_, Tom thinks, his heart pounding.

Reaching into the box, he finds his pocket watch half-obscured by a small mirror. It belonged to Mrs. Cole, apparently her last reminder of her dead father, and was very precious to her, resting polished and gleaming in her desk every day. Tom took particular delight in collecting it, along with the uproar that followed. A malicious smirk curls his lips as he opens it now.

_Ten-thirty. _

Tom jolts with excitement. It seems the old hag has served supper late tonight - Father will be here in less than two hours...

Struggling to calm himself, he sets the pocket watch aside and reaches for the handmirror. The rage comes roaring back in a dizzying rush at the sight of the handprint on his cheek.

Staring at the mark marring the otherwise princely beauty of his face, it takes every ounce of his self control not to fly down the stairs and commit murder. He can do it. Tom knows from the hole in his chest that he can. The ugly thing whispers about it often enough.

He would look down into Mrs. Cole's glassy eyes and feel nothing.

But her death would complicate things. Though Tom prides himself on his excellent acting skills, he would be a prime suspect in the drunk's murder, thereby complicating the situation with his father. And no matter what, that can't happen.

_He won't want a murderer for a son._

Tom looks into the mirror. His mask has fallen, and the ugly thing stares back. It lives in his eyes, in the curl of his lip; it thrives in the hole in his chest. It makes - no, _helps_ \- him do terrible things. It frightens other people away.

It reveals things to others that he'd rather they not know, and so Tom has perfected the mask that hides it - the evidence that he is very much unlike the other children. He does not regret, or pity, or -

With some effort, Tom smoothes the mask back into place. Once, long ago, he dared to show someone what he looked like without it...and it didn't go well. He has learned, since then. He is careful.

But he must be even more cautious now, because Father _saw, _just for a moment, as his mask cracked, struck first by excitement, and then the crushing disappointment and anger of having to go back to the orphanage. It is something that worries him even now, hours later. He _saw_, Tom knows he did, though there was no outward sign of horror or fear...

_I must be careful, _he resolves again, studying his expressionless face for any signs of pretense. He will not lose his father, not after so many nights wishing - praying - for the man's arrival. He and Tom will be together, if he must lock away every hint of his oddness, even...

It won't come to that, Tom thinks, smoothing down his dark hair. _Father is like me. Special. _

He suspected it the moment he looked into the man's electric green eyes, knew for sure once their skin touched and his power came roaring to life. He had felt his father's own power, rising up to meet his, much more controlled than Tom's - and strong, terrifyingly so.

Tom wonders what he can do. What he can teach him.

He wonders...

Against his will, images flood his mind; of his father taking him to the park to play catch, or to the pond to fish, or to a football game...And of his father reading to him, and laughing with him, and maybe even telling him those three silly words, words Tom has wondered at, scoffed upon hearing...longed for...

He abruptly stops that train of thought.

_Fool_, the ugly thing whispers, as a shuddering breath escapes his lips. _He'll take you from this prison, sure, but once he learns what you're hiding..._

His mouth tightens.

_He'll abandon you. Just like **she** did._

Tom squeezes his eyes shut, shoving the memories away. He is infuriated with himself, at the pulse of pain in his chest. The ugly thing is right. It's always right. As elated as Tom may be to finally know his father, the man can never truly know _him_. No one can. He isn't like everyone else, and he never will be.

_I'm special._

His hands shaking, he looks to the window.

Moonlight bathes his surroundings in an ethereal glow, highlighting the shadows that writhe in the far corners of the room. When he was smaller, he used to think monsters hid in that thick darkness, watching and waiting to drag him into its depths.

But he knows better, now. He knows that imaginary beasts mean nothing in the face of _real_ monsters. A mirthless smile curls Tom's lips.

_Like me._

The moon itself is rather high in the sky now, full and beaming. Tom doesn't need to glance at the watch to know the witching hour approaches. He wonders why his father could not simply come with him back to the orphanage and claim him as his birth parent. Then he remembers all the others who have clamored to adopt him over the years - _warm brown eyes, dark curls, an accent_ \- only to change their minds at the old drunk's whispers.

The ugly thing starts to whisper now in the back of his mind, trying to arouse doubt within him through reminders of the past. Tom stifles it. He won't allow what happened with that woman to interfere with his plans. If anything the whole experience serves as a lesson; a reminder that no must see beyond the surface. No one can see _him_. Looking back at the mirror, he focuses on softening the mask into something more pleasing and innocent.

He won't do anything to make his father regret coming for him. He will be good. He will be perfect. He will not let Tom Riddle Sr. see the rotten thing hiding just beneath his son's skin.

Tom closes his eyes, his chest tight.

_Composure is key._

Replacing the mirror in the box, he stands and begins to pack.

* * *

Harry looks up at the grim shape of Wool Orphanage, his heart thundering in his chest.

His wand is clenched tightly in his right hand. _His_ wand - holly and phoenix feather, not the hawthorn and unicorn hair he has come to think of as his own. Both wand and owner had been overjoyed to be reunited, much to Ollivander's curiosity. The man had asked some uncomfortable questions, many of which has Harry wondering even now if perhaps there is more to the old man than meets the eye.

And _Gringotts..._

Pushing away the memories and the swell of anger that accompanies them, Harry focuses on his task. His very sickening, very awful task.

This is necessary, he reminds himself. I can't turn back. Not now.

Ignoring the unease in his gut, he apparates into the building. Once he's in, Harry quickly forces back the nausea, his eyes scanning the dark, spotless halls for any movement. He sees no one.

Good.

Looking around, he can't help but find it jarring, being here in the flesh. Like dreaming about a house and then actually visiting that house. But this is no visit; Harry Potter is on a mission. Guided by the bond, he moves to the staircase, his steps as soft and soundless as a mouse's.

Stealth is a skill he and the others were forced to master quickly in his own time, after Voldemort and his Death Eaters overran Hogwarts. Once the Dark Lord learned of their base in the Room of Requirement, he had thrown everything he had in the hopes of entering, and soon Death Eaters were posted everywhere, trapping them. Eventually, they'd had no choice but to leave for food, as Voldemort intended - but he greatly underestimated the teenagers' ability to be utterly silent, and Hermione' s brilliant use of the Room...

Mounting the stairs, Harry steers his thoughts away from his friends. He is nowhere near finished grieving - may not be for the rest of his life - and when this is over he plans to have a nice, long crying session again; but he needs to focus now. As he's learned well, his emotions tend to hinder him.

Besides, once he does this, they'll be okay. And if the price is a little steep, well...

_Bad things happen to wizards who meddle with time._

He's been thinking about Hermione's words since leaving the park earlier today, and has surmised that undoing Tom Riddle will likely undo Harry himself. After all, like it or not, he is who he is because of Voldemort; there can be no Boy Who Lived without the Dark Lord. Their fates are as deeply interwoven as the fabric of a quilt. Once Tom Riddle is destroyed, there's no telling what will happen to him, Harry Potter, as he is...

Unless, of course, the current events are part of a paradox, like in his third year. Meaning, he's already been here, and done this - and failed. And the gray-eyed liar grows up to be the insane mass-murderer, anyway.

Harry remembers the Riddle in the Forbidden Forest and abruptly pushes all thoughts of second possibility from his mind. He'd rather cease to exist in the process of saving his friends than explore the possibilities that lead up to that. Besides, the time-turner that's brought him here is very unlike Hermione's, or any other he's heard of. If it can disregard the laws of magic enough to send him decades into the past, surely it isn't bound by the same laws in this regard...

If it is, Harry will accept his fate, for the sake of his friends. For the sake of a lonely little boy living in a cupboard beneath the stairs. _For a better world._

Memorizing the blue of the sky, he thought it about it for a long time, and has decided that, unlike his nemesis, he is not afraid to die. Not anymore.

_There are far worse things,_ he thinks, scanning the second floor. Like your best friend sacrificing herself to save you. Or red hair _(a blazing beacon, unreachable) _being swallowed by a writhing mass of black. Or watching the light fade from the eyes of someone precious...

_"Room twenty-seven," _he whispers, in an effort to ground himself. Riddle's location; he remembers this from the Pensieve. Looking around, Harry continues on up to the third floor, his wand out, his eyes peeled for any insomniac orphans. The orphanage is very quiet, though the silence does nothing to calm his nerves.

Upon reaching the third floor, the pull in his gut is replaced with a pleasant warmth, and Harry frowns, murmuring "Lumos," as he begins to scan the doors.

_Twenty-four...twenty-five...twenty-six..._

There is the sound of a door creaking open behind him. Spinning, Harry brandishes his wand, his head spinning with a rush of adrenaline as the small shape of a little girl is illuminated in the doorway of room twenty-three.

They stare at each other for a long moment, Harry frozen and the girl blinking owlishly at him. She doesn't look surprised, oddly enough. Just solemn, and maybe curious. He's never been terribly good at reading people.

"Hello," he says, after a moment, raising his wand from where it lowered a second ago. He fully intends to Obliviate her, when the girl says quietly:

"You're here for Riddle."

It isn't a question. Harry gazes blankly at her, his mouth slightly open.

"I...yes."

She nods to herself, clutching the doorframe. He expects her to scream, or slam the door in fear, but all the girl says is, "Be careful. He's not what he seems."

And then she retreats into her room, the door shutting quietly behind her.

Harry blinks at the spot where she was standing, utterly baffled. After a long moment, he returns his mind forcibly to the task at hand, deciding to leave the girl alone. If she meant to alert anyone, she would have done so, and if she tells anyone, well...

He'll be long gone, by then.

Swallowing thickly, Harry turns and resumes his approach to room twenty-seven. The rush of adrenaline from earlier has not died; it simmers in his veins, sends chills down his back - in stark contrast to the steadily pulsing warmth in his chest.

Breathing deeply, Harry readies himself. He already has a story prepared, in case the boy has questions, and the next hour or so is going to be a severe test of his acting abilities. And tolerance.

Imagining the sweet scent of apples and cinnamon, Harry raises his hand to open the door. It swings open before he can touch it, and suddenly Tom Riddle is in the doorway, peering up at him with his piercing eyes.

"Hello," he greets softly.

"...Hello," Harry manages. Silence descends as they stare at each other, reminding him uncomfortably of his encounter with the odd little girl. Riddle is searching his face hungrily in a manner reminiscent of the diary horcrux, though his expression is open and pleasant. Intensely unnerved, he tries to break the silence,

"Um...how did you -"

"I felt you coming," Riddle says quickly. There is a pillowcase clutched in his right hand. _His things,_ Harry realizes, pity and guilt sinking his stomach. He fights to keep the emotions off his face, looking beyond at the tiny room as a way not to look at the boy.

Riddle will not be staying with him anywhere. Riddle will not survive the night.

When he looks back at th child, it is to see him taking in Harry's new appearance, eyeing the dark robes with curiosity and...amusement? The strange eyes then dart to the wand clutched tightly in his hand, and he cocks his head.

"What's that?" he asks, pointing.

"My wand," Harry replies evenly. He decided before coming that he would not hide his magical abilities. The child should at least know of his heritage before the end.

Riddle does not seem terribly shocked; surprised delight flashes across his face as he stares at it, and Harry recognizes the same greed that the boy in the Pensieve wore towards Dumbledore's wand, though it's hidden well.

"Oh," Riddle whispers, unconsciously leaning forward. "And...and what do you use it for?

"Magic," Harry tells him, waving it. Riddle jumps as something struggles to break free of the pillowcase, his startled gaze darting between it and the wand.

"Open it," Harry tells him.

The younger male gives him a long, assessing look before obeying, his eyes narrowed. Upon seeing the source of the rattling, he pales.

"I...how did you do that?"

"Take it out, Tom."

Swallowing audibly, Riddle lifts the rattling box from the pillowcase, staring at it as though it contains some terrible beast. He purposefully does not meet Harry's gaze.

"The things in there don't belong to you, do they?" Harry asks, knowing fell well they don't. He is fascinated by the apprehension on the young Voldemort's face.

"...No," Riddle whispers finally, darting a glance up at the older male. "I took them."

His honesty surprises Harry. "Why?"

Riddle says nothing, only clutches the box tightly - protectively - against his chest. Harry sighs.

"I don't like thieves."

It is amazing, the change that comes over the boy, then; his eyes widen, his breath grows short, and the expressionless mask crumbles away, revealing fear.

"I-I'm sorry," Riddle whispers. The words are stilted, as though he's not used to saying them. "I didn't..."

Harry says nothing for a long time. He stares at Riddle incredulously. The Dark Lord has just apologized to him...Then the boy raises his eyes, searching his own with that same fear; the teen recognizes with a start the fragility shining in the cloudy gray hues - not quite as evident as it was in the man from the Forbidden Forest, but undoubtedly there.

Ignoring the prickle of unease, Harry tells him to set the box aside. Riddle stares at him, and the other thinks he won't obey, but then he turns and shuffles towards his wardrobe. Riddle raises the box, as if to set it atop it, but makes no further move.

"Tom," Harry says gently. "Leave it."

Riddle doesn't look at him. His fingers are curled around the ends of the box as though he is physically incapable of letting it go.

"Tom-""

"They're _mine_," he whispers. "My trophies."

"No, they're not," Harry replies, trying to keep the impatience from his tone. "You stole them."

"And if I did?" Tom retorts, looking quite similar now to the sullen boy from Dumbledore's memories. "I took them, so they're mine. The things in this box belong to me."

"They belong to the children you took them from," Harry returns, going to stand beside him. "Those 'trophies' aren't yours. Not really. When something comes into your possession fairly and willingly - then you can call yourself its owner."

He places his hand on the younger male's shoulder for good measure, suppressing a shudder at the warmth that floods through him. Riddle is not so prepared, and he starts at the touch, darting a glance up at Harry. He is clearly thinking about the teen's words.

"Tom," Harry urges softly. "Leave it. We have things to do." Like die.

That seems to do the trick; Riddle purses his lips and sets the box down atop the wardrobe, though it is a clear effort, before turning and retrieving his dropped pillowcase of things. His face is smooth and blank again, eerily so.

"Like what?" he asks dully.

Feeling an odd need cheer him up, Harry holds out his hand and says, "Magic."

And just like that, wonder blooms across Riddle's face again. Not looking quite as sullen, he glances at the silent box, and then the wand in Harry's hand, before accepting the proffered limb.

"Will you teach-"

The words are cut off as Harry apparates, morphing into a girlish scream that continues as the pair appear outside of the Leaky Cauldron. Probably should've warned him, the wizard thinks ruefully, while Riddle falls to his knees and vomits loudly. He's still got Harry's hand in a death grip.

"Are you alright?" he asks, kneeling. Riddle doesn't respond. "Tom."

"Where are we?" the boy wheezes. "How did you...?"

"It's okay, relax. We just apparated - and I really should've let you know beforehand..."

Absently rubbing the Riddle's back, Harry waves his wand again with a whispered spell, watching with satisfaction as the mess vanishes.

"Are you alright?" he asks, and nearly apologizes before remembering who it is he's helping to his feet. The amusement and concern dim with the reminder of his task, and Harry steps away as Riddle regains himself, though the boy keeps a tight hold of his hand.

"I'm fine," Riddle tells him, smoothing down his hair. He looks embarrassed, an emotion that again fascinates Harry, coming from the future Dark Lord. The younger male gets over it quickly, however.

Gray eyes are assessing their new surroundings, taking in the seemingly rundown pub and the Londoners who pass by them as though oblivious to their existence. Finally, they land on Harry, studying him intently.

"How did you do that?" he demands.

"I told you: magic."

"So then...you're..."

"A wizard," Harry says simply, studying the other just as intently. "Just like you, Tom."

Riddle stares at him, clearly gauging his expression in search of falsehood. Harry looks back evenly. He tightens his grip around the pale, thin hand, willing the boy to feel the magic swelling warmly between them, born of what he suspects is more than the unwitting contract he made in the Forest.

_Am I as connected to the child as I am to the monster?_ Harry wonders suddenly, as Riddle inhales sharply. _Could I see through his eyes...?_

He sees the exact moment that the pale youth believes him. Riddle's eyes bulge, and his cheeks flush, and he grips Harry's hand hard enough to break his fingers.

"I'm..."

"There's an entire world you belong to, Tom," Harry explains gently, ignoring the spike of guilt the joy on the other's face is causing him. Soon that face will be blank, and even paler with death - lips tinted blue, gray eyes glassy...

Swallowing thickly, Harry forces a smile. "C'mon. I'll show you."

* * *

Riddle drops the blank mask the moment the brick wall parts to reveal Diagon Alley.

He is still clinging to Harry's hand, utterly silent, but his face is bright and red with awe, his eyes shining with delight as he takes in the bustling masses of magical folk. Even so late, the place is packed, and they pass a variety of characters; a one-eyed witch who stares at them, a wizard arguing heartedly with a shopkeeper, a young woman beaming as she leaves a shop with a forlorn-looking owl in tow.

A stout, middle-aged wizard is weaving intricate runes in the air with his wand that sparkle and shimmer and glow, much to the excitement of a growing crowd. Riddle watches that display, looking particularly enthralled, and suddenly he is bombarding Harry with question after question, all of which Harry answers with unusual patience. He finds Riddle's excitement captivating, and cannot help but marvel at the glow in the child's face as he takes in their surroundings.

He expected smugness - triumph - at the confirmation of Riddle's uniqueness in regards to his fellow orphans. A sort of calm acceptance, like when he witnessed Dumbledore' s demonstration in the memory. But right now, clutching his hand, the future Voldemort looks..._exhilarated_. Like a child upon entering Disney World.

It would be infectious, were it not for his coming task. Were the child beaming up at him with large_ (bright)_ gray eyes not destined to become the insane mass-murderer Lord Voldemort.

Struggling to keep his expression pleasant, Harry guides Riddle to his intended destination: Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlor. He'd passed it on the way to Ollivander's, and, struck by an almost crippling wave of nostalgia (and surprise), had decided to take Tom here. Voldemort or not, it feels...wrong to just take the boy somewhere hidden and kill him, just like that. It seems...abrupt. Cruel.

They should at least enjoy a bit of ice cream, before the end.

And it eases Harry's conscious, he can admit that to himself. Sitting across from his 'son,' he continues to answer the boy's seemingly endless stream of questions.

"What are owls used for?"

"Messaging. They take letters back and forth, and people often keep them as pets."

"Why do you all wear dresses?"

"Robes," Harry corrects gently. "And I'm not sure. I thought it strange, myself, at first."

"When did you learn you were a wizard? Did you always know?"

"I, well, no. I was around your age when I found out, actually. But others, "purebloods," grow up knowing of their heritage, and can trace their ancestry back centuries."

Tom thinks about that, while Harry watches him carefully.

"You're not a pureblood?" he asks finally.

"...No," Harry says slowly. "Half-blood. My mother was a muggleborn, and my father a pureblood."

"What's a muggleborn?" Riddle asks, and it is strange to hear that word said without scorn dripping from his lips.

"A witch or wizard born in a family of Muggles."

"Muggle?" the boy says curiously, again making the situation surreal.

"A...non-magical person. Regular people, like the ones you grew up with at the orphanage."

"Oh," Riddle says with a frown. "So then...I'm muggleborn?"

"What - no!" Harry would laugh uproariously if he weren't so appalled. Lord Voldemort - a muggleborn! "Your father - er, _I'm_ a half-blood-"

"And my mother?" Riddle is leaning over the small table between them. "What was she?"

"A pureblood," Harry says, trying to hide his discomfort at the mention of Merope Gaunt. "The scion of a very old line."

"Oh," Rather than looking pleased, however, Riddle grows sober. He picks at the worn corner of the wood table, his eyes dark and troubled.

"How did she die, then?" he asks softly.

Harry, though expecting such a question, takes a moment to answer.

"Your mother...was very sick, Tom. She...She led a very hard life. She wanted, more than anything, love, and, when I chose to, uh, to leave her, she employed some very...questionable methods in order to get me to stay. When I realized what she was doing, I was horrified - so I left."

Tom's eyes have grown darker with each word.

"And?" he prompts.

"Well, um...I didn't, uh, I didn't realize how...attached, Merope was. Apparently, she couldn't handle the seperation...and she began to waste away. By then she was already pr-pregnant. From what I learned, she spent most of her pregnancy wandering the streets - she'd, uh, she'd run away from home. When she went into labor, she found the nearest orphanage, had you-"

"And died," Riddle finishes quietly. He is staring at Harry, his mouth tight. "I know that. What I want to know is _how._ If...if she was a witch, and she could do magic, then why didn't she save herself?"

"I don't know," Harry admits. It's something he wonders, himself.

Mrs. Fortescue - the future Florean's mother, he thinks - comes, then, with their ice cream.

"Enjoy!" she chirps, and with her departure a heavy silence descends. There is no wonder or awe in Riddle's face, now - he looks somber and closed-off. He doesn't touch his ice cream.

"Did you know about me?" he asks suddenly.

Harry blinks at him. "What?"

"When you left my mother - did you know about me?"

Riddle looks up at him then, and there is a flash of that same _darkness_ in his gaze, though it is hidden just as quickly as before. Harry sees it and knows that he must tread very carefully. Quietly, he says,

"No."

Riddle studies him, searching for deceit. On any other person, that piercing gaze would've found it. But Harry has looked Albus Dumbledore in the twinkling blue eye and lied successfully before; in the last year or so, he's found he's particularly good at it when placed in dire situations. And so Riddle finds nothing.

"...Oh," the boy says faintly, finally dropping his stare. The moment passes. "How did you learn of me, then?"

"Well, I was tracking Merope. After so many years, I'd wondered what happened to her..."

"So you used magic to find her," Riddle guesses.

"Yes," Harry nods. "And...And I found you, instead."

"So today at the park-!"

"Exactly," Harry confirms, privately pleased at how nicely it all fits together. "Imagine how surprised I was, upon seeing you. My son!"

"You did seem shocked," Riddle agrees. A pleased flush reddens his cheeks, though his expression is perfectly composed again. Harry marvels at the sight. "But so was I."

"I knew right then I had to save you from those Muggles," he continues, internally wincing at his tone. "It...it must have been awful."

"It was," the boy says softly, finally reaching for his ice cream. He gives it an experimental lick, and Harry can tell from the widening of his eyes that Riddle has never had ice cream before. He imagines then, for the first time, what life at the orphanage must have been like. Drab clothes and drab surroundings - each day carried out with the hope of being rescued. Each night feeling that hope die a little more. Wash and weed and cook and clean, and then retreat back to the cupboard with only spiders for company, guests are coming, he must make no noise and pretend he isn't there -

Harry blinks, startled. Where did that come from?

_What's wrong with me?_

He hasn't thought of his aunt and uncle, or his stay with them, for a very long time. Mouth parted, he looks at Riddle, who has become preoccupied with his ice cream. He's got some of it on his nose. Harry's heart wrenches - because it's hitting him again, the weight of what he's about to do. Riddle is sitting there, eating the treat with childish delight, and there is no trace of that darkness, now, or that eerily held composure. No trace of smug triumph, or psychotic rage, or crushing sorrow.

He looks like a boy. He looks like a child.

"I'm sorry," Harry blurts.

Riddle pauses. He blinks at Harry, tilting his head like a curious puppy, and on another surge of impulse the teen reaches over and wipes the spot of chocolate from his nose. The younger jumps at the action, face growing redder upon realizing the reason behind it. Riddle sits a little straighter in his chair, eyes glued to the table, now. He is clearly considering something.

"...I used to pray," he says finally, still not looking at Harry. "Every night. That you'd come for me, father. And now that you have, I-"

He stops speaking, then, as though the words have caught on something, and Harry watches with confusion as his expression goes blank. "I'm grateful," he finishes coolly, but it's clear that that's not what he was going to say.

Harry doesn't press it, though; he is still marvelling at the first part of that sentence. Voldemort? _Praying?_ The two are mutually exclusive. The only God in the Dark Lord's mind is himself.

_But maybe that's not true for Tom Riddle._

And to add to the surrealism of the situation, Harry finds himself reaching across the table and taking a pale, thin hand. It's curious, how such cold skin can ignite such warmth within him. He looks into Riddle's eyes, and in his mind imagines them crimson, burning with hate and rage and insanity - and glee, murderous glee.

But the hues remain gray, shining with curiosity and something as close to innocence as his archnemesis could ever achieve.

"I'm sorry I didn't come sooner," he says softly, sincerely. Because suddenly Harry wishes he did. Maybe, if he was sent back early enough, he could've saved that sad young girl who still haunts his dreams, sometimes. Tom Riddle could've grown up with love...

His thoughts are interrupted as the boy's lips stretch in a smile. It is slow, and hesitant, but _real_, and as Harry's breath catches he is reminded how beautiful a child Riddle is.

After a moment, he smiles back. It's almost genuine.

* * *

After that, something changes in the air between them.

Riddle is more relaxed and open, though there are still moments when Harry gets the sense he's hiding something. The teen is surprised by how easily the conversation flows between them, the subjects ranging from wizarding money, to spells, to laws and ways of life, to Hogwarts.

Tom is especially enraptured by tales of the ancient castle, and after an eternity dscussing it, Harry checks the time and is astonished to find it is approaching dawn.

_I can't put it off any longer_, he thinks, with a sinking feeling. He looks at Tom, who stops in his listing of all the spells he hopes to learn.

"What's wrong?" he asks.

"We...we have to go," Harry mumbles. Standing, he sets a galleon on the table. "I want to stop by one more place."

He holds out his hand, hoping Tom won't notice how it trembles. Tom takes it, his expression wary, and then the world is blurring around them. Harry's insides squirm as he apparates into Hyde Park. To_-Riddle_ recovers remarkably well, this time, and he is saved the task of having to clean up vomit, again.

As Riddle straightens, gauging their surroundings, Harry takes the time to compose himself. It's hitting him, now - the realization that he is really about to go through with this, and his heart is beating rapidly, sweat beading on his forehead.

This is necessary.

Pursing his lips, Harry's eyes fix to the familiar fountain some yards away. It'll take them a few minutes to get there. And when they do, he'll do it.

"C'mon," he says softly. They begin to walk. The park is quiet and deserted, the excited calls of crickets filling the warm night air. Above their heads, the sky is clear and vast, streaked with the first rays of dawn. Soon, the sun will rise to fill that great, endless stretch of stars...

But neither of them will live to see it.

"What's wrong?" Tom asks, his voice loud in the near-silence.

"Nothing," Harry answers. "I was just thinking...of how beautiful the world is."

Tom's hand tightens around his. "Oh. I suppose it is...beautiful."

He cranes his dark head to look at sky, eyes large and silvery. "But it's full of ugly things."

"And how would you know?" Harry asks. The fountain is getting closer and closer. Each step towards it feels terribly heavy, as though his feet have morphed into cement blocks. Not even the warmth from Tom's hand can soothe his racing heart. He swallows thickly.

"Children know lots of things," Tom replies, oblivious. "Adults just think we don't."

"...True," Harry says, impressed by his answer. "And what exactly do you know, Tom?"

"That most people are scum," Tom says easily. "Murderers, thieves, _liars_..."

Harry tenses at the emphasis on the last word, but when he looks at Tom, he finds the other lost in his own thoughts. It doesn't appear to have been directed at him.

"That's -"

"True," Tom assures him, as they stop at the fountain. His heart is beating so hard Harry fears the boy will hear it, but Riddle remains ignorant, releasing the teen's hand to go and peer into the shimmering waters. "People are weak, pathetic things, ruled by their emotions; they cling to eacb other like lifelines..."

This is it. Perfect opportunity. He can do this - _I can do this -_

_I don't have a choice._

"We do," Harry says softly, studying Tom's back. His shoulders are hunched, his fingers curling over the lip of the fountain. He is seemingly transfixed by the coins glittering in the water. Slowly, hardly daring to breathe, Harry pulls out his wand. "But it's that dependency on one another that allows us to wield the greatest magic."

"And what is that?" Riddle whispers. He doesn't turn around. Harry wonders what expression he's wearing.

Blood roaring in his ears, he imagines Ron, and Hermione, and Ginny. He remembers Albus Dumbledore with his twinkling blue eyes, always honest, always kind. What would he say if he saw Harry now?

_"I believe in you, Harry,"_ Ginny says, amongst the sudden chaos of his thoughts. The words don't calm him, this time - if anything, they cause more turmoil. Harry raises his wand, breathing raggedly. He doesn't want to be a murderer.

"Love," he says quietly.

He doesn't want to kill a child.

_If he'd been raised with love, Dumbledore said... _

_Forget Dumbledore!_ A voice roars in the back of his mind. It sounds like Ron._ This is Voldemort! He killed your parents, tortured and murdered your friends! He's responsible for every tear you've ever shed! He's a psychotic mass-murder who enjoys hurting people. Unfeeling, uncaring. Insane. He deserves to rot in hell, like the one he put you through! He's a monster. **Kill him**._

And Harry's lips part to do just that.

But then Tom turns around. And as their eyes meet, green against silver, Harry hears a soft, _clear_ voice amidst the pandemonium in his head. It is laced with weariness and sorrow, but most importantly a _certainty - _one drawn from many, many years of life:

_"No one is born evil."_

And Harry Potter drops his wand, feeling suddenly as old and tired as the man who spoke those words, as Tom Riddle looks on confusedly and the sun rises. The boy's death is necessary. For the greater good. But he can't do it.

_I won't_.

"Fa-"

"I'm not your father."

* * *

_**A/N: So. I didn't mean to leave this chapter a cliffhanger, but wanted to get this out as soon as possible and it was getting long. Feedback of any kind is really appreciated. It helps.**_

_**Till next time, and I hope you liked! **_


	4. IV: keep your temper

_**Disclaimer: Don't own Harry Potter. At all. Whatsoever. **_

_**A/N: Okay, deep breath, it's - chapter four! I usually don't get past chapter three in my stories, I'm ashamed to admit, and this newest chapter has come into existence mainly through all your support - so thanks!**_

_**I know the wait for this one was long, and I'm sorry - school's in again, exams coming up and everything, so I haven't had as much time to work on this, let alone reply to reviews. I assure you I appreciate every one (every fav and follow, too!) and thanks for being patient!**_

_**EDIT: This is dedicated to Shadowdude 333, who was kind enough to give me a very important line in the chapter. Sorry it slipped my mind before, and thanks! **_

_**Hope you enjoy!**_

* * *

_Chapter 4_

* * *

_"'Come back!' the Caterpillar called after her. 'I've something important to say.'_  
_This sounded promising, certainly. Alice turned and came back again. _

_'Keep your temper,' said the Caterpillar."_

_ \- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland_

* * *

**In Wonderland °°**

"I'm not your father."

The words slip from his lips without warning, like some dirty confession, and Harry's entire body stiffens at the realization of his mistake. He stares at Riddle with round eyes. The boy is looking back, but there is no shock, or rage, yet; only confusion. He blinks for a few moments, brows furrowed.

"...What?"

Harry swallows. His eyes dart to the wand at his feet. He could snatch it up and Obliviate Riddle, thereby salvaging the situation, but some invisible force keeps him still. It opens his mouth and drags out the same words,

"I'm not your father."

Riddle is still looking at him with a puzzled expression, as though he's just spoken some strange foreign language.

"...Yes you are," he says eventually, after another pregnant pause. And then: "What's wrong? Why are you looking at me like that?"

He walks closer, peering up at Harry with his mouth turned downwards. There is a dab of chocolate ice cream at the crease of his lips.

"I'm not your father, Tom," Harry whispers again, and he's not sure what's happening, why the lies are crumbling away, now, truth falling from his lips. Maybe it's the memory of Dumbledore's words; each one is a sharp stab at his brain, unravelling in it a whole slew of possibilities that leave Harry both breathless and terrified.

_Could I...?_

He looks down at Tom, and thinks of Merope Gaunt. That sad, miserable girl had died to birth her beloved son - and for naught. The boy before him will grow up and know nothing of love, or kindness, or true happiness. He will cause pain, and suffering. He will be hated, and feared. He will become a monstrous figure, one whose death will be rejoiced, rather than mourned...

_The Dark Lord..._

Just the memory of his nemesis is enough to make Harry shudder with hatred. But, looking down, he finds he feels...pity...for the boy behind the monster. He is sad for the young girl who only wanted to be loved; who, in that love, brought into the world the most terrible wizard to ever befall humanity. Merope Gaunt, after a life of misery, had not received her happy ending. And neither will her son.

_Not truly_, Harry thinks. For the child she loved so much is doomed to wither and die, murdered by hate and bitterness and an overwhelming desire to be better - to be _more_. That son, Gaunt's only legacy, is staring up at him, now. His eyes are an arresting shade of gray, and growing darker as he searches Harry's.

_No one will ever love you_, Harry realizes with a pang_. Not Tom Riddle, the half-blood._

The knowledge heightens the pity he feels to the point of near-pain, his heart wrenching in his chest as he remembers those desolate years in the cupboard, when he had curled up on the lumpy bed and thought the same thing of himself. No one would ever love, him, Harry - the orphan, the _freak..._

But he had escaped the Dursleys, hadn't he? For most of the year, he got to go to Hogwarts, where adventure and most importantly friends awaited. Riddle...does he even know the meaning of the word? No; Lord Voldemort has subordinates, servants, followers - he does not have people he can joke with, or talk with long into the night, or any in which he can confide his deepest secrets. Tom Riddle had grown up a genius, but could not comprehend the most precious of all human concepts: love. He would never feel the warmth of a lover, or the easiness of camaraderie...

The Dark Lord, in his desire to live forever, would never really live at all.

_But it doesn't have to be that way._

Harry trembles at the thought. Suddenly a whole world of possibilities is being played out in his mind; raising Riddle, caring for him, _shaping_ him...

It presents a slew of benefits that simply killing the boy doesn't - but the weight of such a task...

_I can't do it,_ Harry thinks. _I can't._

Because he knows himself. He knows that he isn't strong enough to forget what Tom Riddle has done. Will do. He had allowed himself to forget this evening so that interacting with the boy would be easier - but to _live_ with him? To raise the ruby-eyed beast who has so thoroughly destroyed his life?

_Not yet,_ someone says faintly, in the back of his mind. It sounds like Dumbledore.

"...Of course you are," Tom is saying, breaking the course of his thoughts. His eyes move rapidly over Harry's face. In a very small voice, he says, "Why would you lie about something like that?"

Tom takes his hand, but the other can see the uncertainty written in the soft lines of his face. Warmth pulses between their joined palms as Harry tells him, in a voice reserved for one delivering particularly terrible news,

"...My name is Harry Potter. I'm eighteen years old. I'm not your father, Tom."

Silence descends. Tom is looking into Harry's eyes, and he must see the truth, there, for realization crashes over the boy's countenance like some monstrous wave. His eyes widen and his face drains of color. A ragged breath escapes his lips.

"So then...you...all of this..."

Riddles's voice is very soft, and it wavers noticeably. Harry looks down at him, wordless, and feels like the shittiest person in the world. The boy is standing there, still clutching his hand, looking as Harry imagines he himself, did when he witnessed Ron fall lifelessly to the mad laughter of Bellatrix Lestrange. Stunned, frozen, face twisted with disbelief and a terrible pain...

"You lied to me," Riddle whispers, and Harry watches, transfixed, as something crumbles in the ten-year-old's face. A wall he hadn't realized was there has fallen down, and the older male nearly recoils as the ugliness he's caught brief snatches of before is exposed in all its horror.

All the myriad emotions are swept away from Riddle's expression as easily as dust; his eyes become twin bits of steel, cold and hard and darkening with a terrible fury. His little jaw clenches, and his fingers are digging into Harry's hand with frightening strength.

"You _lied_," Riddle says again, his voice hoarse. And that pain, that pain is still there, but it is drowned by that awful - _empty_ \- darkness. Harry's breath catches at the sight of it, as sharp nails draw blood from his skin, sliding warm and red down his colorless flesh in contrast to the rapidly dropping temperature.

"Tom," he tries, as an unnatural wind tears through the area, assaulting Harry's form with a ferocity that almost knocks him off his feet. His mouth falls open, but he can say nothing in the face of that horribly familiar rage. It does not blaze; it _chills_, traveling from Riddle's hand to his captive palm and freezing the blood in his veins. The bond forces him to feel firsthand the extent of Tom's anger, tinged with an overwhelming sense of betrayal and something bordering on despair. Harry's throat closes with a terror he knows too well, for he is reminded vividly who it is he's dealing with. Forcibly shoving it back, he is surprised to find guilt tightening his chest, too. He should've Obliviated Tom - why had he thought it a good idea to tell him the truth?

_No one is born evil._

"Tom," Harry says again, struggling to be heard over the roaring wind that whips at his face and clothes. "Tom, listen -"

_"Liar!"_ Tom screams at him, as the grass dies beneath their feet and the water erupts in the fountain behind him, coins flying everywhere. Harry's mouth falls open. His heart is pounding thunderously in his chest, his hands sweating profusely - but his mind clears.

_My wand,_ he thinks, his eyes darting down to where it lays just by his foot. Every instinct he's acquired over the past year or so is screaming at him to bend and snatch it up and end this, every muscle in his body tensed for fight or flight. Adrenaline erupts in his bloodstream at the familiar brush of malevolent magic, and for a moment Harry is back on the grounds of Hogwarts, staring into red eyes with blood roaring in his ears and the belief that this is it - _one of them is going to die -_

But he stops himself from reaching for it, choosing instead to hold Tom Riddle's icy gaze.

_Tom Riddle_, he reminds himself. _Not Voldemort._

Because there has to be a difference. As magic licks at his skin with the intent to hurt, Harry forces himself to look into the gray hues, at the void that lives in them. There was something else there...

"Liar," Tom whispers again, his magic lashing Harry's flesh, seeking an opening, a way to cause him damage. It hurts, badly, but Harry ignores the burning sensation in favor of grasping at the bond. And now he feels it, there, the _difference_ -

Pain festers through the connection like a raw wound, along with betrayal and humiliation and rage. The depth of it is terrible, and while Harry feels guilty he is also relieved, because the Dark Lord knows nothing of the pain Riddle is feeling, that deep-rooted suffering of the heart - he had cast it forever away from himself with the tearing of his soul.

"I lied," Harry agrees. He looks into the boy's face and comes to a decision. "I'm not your father, Tom."

Kneeling, he rips his hand away and pulls the boy into a crushing hug, thinking of all those he's lost, all those he can save, now. Closing his eyes, Harry remembers twinkling blue eyes and fire-kissed hair and whispers,

"But I can be."

Riddle stills. Magic is still crackling violently in the air, but it seems to have lost some of its bite with the boy's shock.

"L...Let go of me," Tom croaks, hands coming up to push Harry away. Harry, guided by some strange instinct, does not. Instead, he holds him tighter, resting his face in the crook of a thin shoulder and burying his fingers in soft black waves.

"Shh," he soothes, though the boy has gone utterly silent. "It's alright, Tom."

"Let go," Tom growls, though his voice wavers. He's squirming, wriggling, trying his best to escape Harry's grip, but the teen's arms have become steel. Making a frustrated sound, the boy's struggles grow wilder and wilder, until he is clawing and scratching at Harry's arms and shoulders, pulling at his hair, punching his back.

"Let go! _Let go!"_

"Tom..."

"Filthy _liar_ \- release me - _I'll kill you - !"_

Harry grits his teeth as Tom's magic renews its assault, trying to make good on his threat. It seeps through his robes, scorching the skin of his back, and attacks with such ferocity that it takes all he has not to cry out; instead Harry hugs the boy tighter. He's never been terribly eloquent with words, and so this is the only way he can communicate to Tom that he understands - that he was once ten, and miserable, and lonely. He was once just as angry at the world.

But Harry Potter was rescued; Tom Riddle was not. Or perhaps he didn't allow himself to be...

_I'll do it,_ Harry thinks, as his flesh burns. _I'll save you._

"I'm here," he says aloud, tightening his arms around the boy. The pain is quickly crossing into agony. In his arms, Tom freezes, his breath hitching.

"I'm here, Tom," Harry repeats,

"Stop," Tom says hoarsely.

"I lied to you," the wizard continues, as though the younger male hasn't spoken. "I'm not Tom Riddle Sr. And I'm so very sorry. For hurting you. You've been hurt a lot, haven't you, Tom?"

"S-stop. You don't know anything about me!"

"Oh," Harry sighs. "I know lots of things. I know you wanted to be rescued from that awful place you grew up in. I know you wanted to be special. I know that, more than anything, you _want_ to be loved."

"Shut-up!" Riddle says shrilly, and Harry knows he's struck a chord. The knowledge softens him, though his arms tighten to almost crushing levels. Quietly, he resumes,

"You've never had that, have you, Tom? You've always been alone."

"I said-!"

"It's terrible, isn't it? The others...they sense you're different. Special. So they fear you, and after a while that fear turns into hate."

"Stop it."

"So they shun you, pretend like you aren't there - like you're some terrible beast that will go away, if only they ignore you long enough."

Harry's mouth is moving, but his mind is flooded now with memories of the Dursleys.

"And it hurts," he says softly. "It hurts so much. But you pretend it doesn't, because it's easier that way. And soon you hate them as much as they hate you..."

"Shut-up," Tom whispers, and then louder, "Shut-up! You don't know anything about me! You don't know anything!"

"On the contrary, Tom," Harry says sadly. "I understand you better than anyone else ever could. And that's why...that's why I'm going to stay with you. You won't be alone, anymore."

"Liar!" Tom gasps, and it is as though he has lost all control of himself; the cool, quiet boy of before is gone, replaced with a little beast who thrashes in Harry's hold like one gone mad, nails tearing his robes and gouging lines into his back, hollering curses and obscenities and over it all "_liar, liar, **liar."**_

Harry takes the abuse, his eyes squeezed shut. He's not sure what to do.

"You won't be alone, anymore," he says again, finally. "I swear that on all the people I love. I can't be your father, but I-I can be your brother, and I promise, if you'll come with me, we'll do everything together. I'll - I'll take you to see a movie, and - and we'll practice spells, and I'll teach you how to fly on a broom. I'll buy you anything you want, and when you f-finally go to - ouch - Hogwarts, I'll come visit you and we'll go down to Hogsmeade together, and you can try all of Bertie Botts' Every Flavor Beans. I'll read to you, each night before you go to bed, and we'll go see Quidditch games, and maybe fishing - I've always wanted to go fishing-"

He's rambling, now, but Tom is not struggling quite so fiercely, and, encouraged, Harry continues,

"We can do all of those things, Tom. And more. You'll never have to see Wool Orphanage - or the people in it - again."

The ten-year-old is trembling violently now, having fallen utterly silent. Harry senses that Riddle is at the edge of a precipice. Just one more nudge...

"Come with me," he says quietly. "Be...my little brother...and I promise I'll never leave you. I'll show you what happiness is. Wouldn't you like to be happy, Tom?"

The boy says nothing. He seems to have stopped breathing. But Harry feels, through the bond, a curious thing. Carding his fingers through the other's hair, he resists the urge to sigh.

"It's alright," he soothes, in the silence. "It's alright to be sad. You're hurting, right now, because I lied to you, and you don't understand why you're hurting. So you're trying to hurt me. But that's okay, because I'm not going anywhere-"

"_Don't_-"

"I'm here, Tom. You don't have to hide from me. You're in pain, and its okay to let that out. I won't leave you-"

"I don't care if you _do!_" Tom growls, though his voice wavers. He has stopped attacking Harry, And is shaking violently. "I don't even know you. You're an imposter, a fake-!"

"I won't leave you," Harry says again, patient. The chirping of the crickets has quieted with the first rays of the morning, and he opens his eyes to see the sky lightening, streaked with bursts of purple and flame. It's beautiful, enchanting, and as he buries his fingers in thick waves of ebony, he wonders at himself, at his initial intent to deprive both himself and another human being of such a sight.

"You're mad!" Tom cries, again pinterrupting his thoughts. His tone is high and bordering on hysteria. "Release me, or - or _I'll-!"_

"I won't leave you, Tom," Harry sighs, and the chains wrapped around his core tighten and grow heavy.

"Liar," the boy whispers, his voice oddly thick. "Go - go away. I don't want_ you,_ I want..."

A pause. Tom's next words are nearly inaudible, but just as shocking as though he has shouted them:

"I want_ him..."_

"I'm sorry," Harry says softly, and he really is. Tom does not respond; the confession seems to have weakened him, for he sags in the wizard's forced embrace. The bony arms so intent on escaping him seconds before are wrapping around him now, nails biting into his ravaged back as though holding on for dear life. Harry falls silent, his eyes still fixed on the stretching sky. The little body he holds is wracked with silent sobs.

They sit there, in the middle of the park, for what seems an eternity. Harry is on his knees now, Tom halfway in his lap. The boy cries and cries and cries, and the shoulder of his robe is soaked clean through, but Harry can't bring himself to care; he is still struck frozen by the surrealism of the situation - and he knows, from his own many, many crying sessions over the years, that the most comforting response he can possibly give right now is silence. Tom doesn't seem to appreciate empty apologies assurances, even less so than Harry, himself.

He suspects the boy is crying about more than just his father.

Finally, though, Tom stills. His fingers are curled in the ruined fabric of Harry's robes, clinging, and at the soft, almost inaudible sound of sniffling, the wizard is reminded once again that, future Dark Lord or not, he is currently dealing with a child - a child that he's already hurt.

_I must be careful. _

"...Tom," Harry says quietly. The boy tenses, and to calm him down again Harry starts to rub his back in soothing circles, as he does (_did_) to Ginny when she was feeling particularly distressed. It works. As Tom relaxes, his magic calming, Harry licks his lips and says, with a carefully even tone,

"Tom, it's...it's nearly daylight...Do you want me to take you back to the orphanage?"

There is a long moment of silence in which Riddle says nothing, and Harry waits for his response, hardly daring to breathe. He intends to take the ten-year-old regardless of his answer, but he would very much prefer that Tom say 'no.' _Obliviate _is a spell he's never felt comfortable using, and he doubts his efficiency in casting it - leaving force as the only other option, should Riddle choose to do things the hard way.

"No," Tom whispers, nails digging into Harry's ravaged back, again.

Harry is so relieved (and surprised) at the answer that he hardly feels the pain. There is a bit of disappointment within him, as well - mainly in that part of him that remains frightened at the task he has taken upon himself. Slowly, he says,

"...Would you like to come with me?"

Another pause. "No."

Harry is about to release a sigh, when Tom adds quietly, "But I suppose I must."

"...Okay," Harry responds, after a moment. Reaching for his wand, he waits for Riddle to unwind his arms, but the boy remains unmoving.

"...Tom?"

Tom says nothing. He has yet to look up, his face buried in the crook of Harry's neck, which is wet with tears and what he suspects but dearly hopes is not snot.

_He's hiding_, the teen realizes, and finds he is not all that surprised. Riddle, from what Harry's seen of him, does not like to display his emotions for just anybody to see. Harry reaches through the bond and discovers the humiliation he expected, along with a sharp edge of resentment directed at him. Again resisting the urge to sigh, Harry tells him,

"I'm going to take you to my room at the Leaky Cauldron, then. We'll stay there for the day, and come nightfall..."

Silence is the boy's answer, and Harry rolls his eyes heavenward.

_This is going to be very, very difficult._

Some might call the task absurd. But he is Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, and he is famous for his defiance of the impossible. Saving Tom Riddle is just another of those things.

_I'm going to be good to you,_ Harry thinks, standing. Tom is still clinging to him, adamantly refusing to lift his head, and he wonders suddenly what the kid looks like - the unflappable Lord Voldemort at the tender age of ten, his round face streaked with tears...

It's impossible for Harry to imagine, and in his mind the horrifying image of the Dark Lord and his diary counterpart move a little further away from his perception of the Tom. It makes it easier to sweep his arm under Tom's legs, one hand still resting on the boy's back.

_I'll do everything I said and more_, Harry promises the other silently. He's not sure if he can ever harbor any sort of affection for the boy (the wounds his friends have left behind are far too deep for that), but damn if he can't _fake_ it. A world hangs in the balance.

And Harry's always been good at lying when it counts.

Closing his eyes, he Disapparates. There is a harsh tug in his gut, and the sweet scent of clean morning air is replaced with the potent smell of polished wood and alcohol. The quiet of before has vanished, and is already a fading memory as the low buzz of many voices fills Harry's ears.

The Leaky Cauldron is more subdued than usual, but it _is_ five in the morning, and Harry opens his eyes, taking in the familiar surroundings with a relish that has yet to dim. He was pleasantly surprised to find it still here, its keeper (named Tom, ironically) significantly younger, and the atmosphere is just as he remembers it; if he shuts his eyes again, Harry can almost pretend he is back in the year 1996, in his sixth year at Hogwarts, before Dumbledore died and Voldemort took over and everything crashed and burned and went to shit.

Tom escapes his hold, wiping hastily at his face, though Harry pretends not to see. Cautiously taking the younger male's arm, he ignores the stares shot their way and leads Tom to the room he rented a few hours ago, nodding politely to the bartender as he heads towards the stairs. The boy does not resist, his limb weak and boneless in Harry's grasp, and the silence is thick between them as Harry guides his new charge towards the end of the long hallway, unlocking his temporary housing with a murmured spell. Tom makes no move to enter the room, and so Harry must pull him in. Quickly releasing Riddle's arm, he shuts the door of the room, closing out the noise from downstairs.

"Would you like something to eat? Or drink?" Harry asks. Anything to break the silence. But Tom does not even look at him. He is staring firmly at the floor, unmoving in his place by the entrance.

"Where is the washroom?" he asks quietly.

Suppressing a frown, Harry gestures at the door on the other side of the room

"It's over there. Are you going to wash up? Here - I'll get some pajamas for you..."

Waving his wand, he transfigures a pen and a notepad on the nightstand into a T-shirt and checkered pajama pants. Harry hands them to Tom, who stares at the clothes with a glimmer of interest, and no small amount of confusion.

_Oh, that's right_, Harry remembers, as Tom shuffles to the bathroom without comment. _He wouldn't wear something like that to bed, not in 1939..._

Sighing softly, Harry moves to rub his eye, only to hiss as the pain in his back makes itself known again. Looking around for a moment, he transfigures the small table near the back of the room into a large mirror, and begins to strip off his robes.

_I should really repair those,_ he thinks, turning so that his reflection's rear is in clear view. Harry takes in the damage, both horrified and impressed. There are deep gauges in his back, the flesh torn from Tom's wild attempts to escape, and dried flakes of brown trail down the skin like tears. While that's annoying, it's the burns that really unsettle him. Criss-crossing his back, they glare at him, red and angry. He looks like he's been lashed with a flaming whip.

Harry remembers the sensation of his flesh on fire under the assault of Tom's magic and swallows. As he raises his wand, wincing, he wonders if the burns were intentional. If Tom knew what he was doing. Harry recalls how he'd thrashed, and raged, and screamed, and decides that he didn't. He hopes he didn't. The alternative would certainly complicate things.

Suppressing a hiss, Harry touches the tip of his wand to the gouge marks and murmurs a spell. He's had plenty of experience with healing wounds - had much worse than this - and they close easily enough. But when he does the same to one of the burns, nothing happens. It continues to mar his skin, stark and mocking.

Ignoring the thread of fear that winds around his heart, Harry repeats the spell, loudly and clearly. The wound remains unchanged. So he tries another healing incantation, and another, and another, and when the burn resists even the strongest spell he knows, Harry drops his wand, staring wide-eyed and white-faced at his back.

_It's not permanent,_ he tells himself. _I'm no healer. If Hermione was here..._

She had become the medic in their group, and her repertoire of spells had extended to a truly amazing length. Harry's seen her heal third degree burns in minutes, undo curses from the likes of Bellatrix Lestrange and some from the Dark Lord himself. Hermione could vanish these wounds without a problem...

_But she's dead_, Harry reminds himself, and the wave of loss that crashes over him at the thought is staggering. He'd thought the deaths of his best friends would be easier to handle, a little less painful - but the sorrow wells within him just as strongly as before, and it is the only the knowledge of the boy the bathroom that stops Harry from giving into his grief for second time.

His mind strays to brilliant red locks, and Harry halts it right there. Reminders of _her_ is something he really can't handle, right now. There'll be time later, to mourn. Until then, he won't even think her name.

Releasing a shuddering breath, the teen focuses again on the burns. Since spells won't work, or at least any he knows, he'll have to go about things the Muggle way. Surely they have burn ointment in this time? The pain isn't terrible, but it's rather annoying, and after the day he's had, sleep sounds like a refuge that the sting of the burns intends to refuse him.

_I wonder if there are any shops open..._

* * *

Tom is staring blankly at himself in the mirror above the tiny sink when he hears a knock on the door.

"Tom?" the liar calls softly through the wood. "Are you okay in there?"

He says nothing, fully intent on ignoring the imposter until the end of time. His chest...hurts. Like it did when that blasted woman, with her Coca-Cola and ridiculous accent, came bustling, bright and idiotic, into the drab gray of the orphanage.

_She left as quickly, too._

Fists clenching, he takes a deep, steadying breath. It won't do to lose his composure. Not again. He is angry enough with himself as it is. Oh, he hates the imposter for lying to him, for making him _believe_...

_But I should've realized sooner,_ he thinks, scowling. No one has ever fooled him before. And even worse, the liar had seen - seen the ugly thing in all its glory as it ripped and seared his flesh, seen his mask crumble to pieces, felt him tremble - heard his _tears_.

That, in particular, is unforgivable.

But why? The boy wonders, flinging aside the 'pajamas' the imposter gave him. Why had he cried? He has not done so in a very long time, and certainly never _sobbed_ \- yet he had clung to that **liar** and wept like an infant. The man hadn't even hurt him...

No, Tom thinks. No he _did_. He had speared Tom's chest with his lies - with his sad smile and his careful hands and his soft, old green eyes. He had stabbed that faint, fragile thing blooming in his chest, trampled it into the dirt, as that woman had.

_Well, I've learned,_ he thinks, bitterly. _I've learned. Trust no one but yourself. Love only yourself. That way, no one can hurt you..._

I'm going out," the liar says, seemingly unperturbed by the answering silence. "I'll be back in a bit, I promise. Don't leave the room, okay?"

Then there is the sound of receding footsteps, and the quiet click of the door opening and closing. Tom clutches the edge of the sink, silent. He was a fool. A desperate, hopeful fool, and that desperation has caused this pain in his chest. But it hurts even more, this time, because he'd actually...he'd actually _thought..._

_Father._

His chin quivers, and Tom is disgusted with himself. _Weak_, he thinks, staring hard into the mirror. He sees a pale boy with aristocratic features and steely eyes. Wet eyes, swollen and red. Dried tear tracks are clear on his cheeks, and with a snarl he turns on the faucet and scrubs the skin until the evidence is gone - until his cheeks are red and raw - until they bleed with the force of his nails, red rivulets running down his face like the tears he's trying desperately to stop.

They come anyway, mingling with the blood and falling into the sink. Clouding the cold, clear water.

He had believed...he had _believed_...

Tom hunches over the sink, his breathing labored and loud in his ears. The bathroom feels - small, suffocating. But he can't find the strength to leave it. Watching as his blood mingles with the water, he imagines what the liar thought of him, so stupid and eager and trusting -_ "Father, Father"_ -

Humiliation squeezes his eyes shut, tightens his mouth. The cords of his bony arms are made visible by the accompanying rage. It swells within him, burning his insides like hellfire. He wants suddenly to rip and tear and _kill_ \- to destroy the worm that would dare make him feel such an emotion. The beast within him - the ugly thing - is calling for blood, and as the mirror cracks, distorting his reflection, Tom imagines snapping the liar's neck as he did Billy Stubbs's rabbit, imagines the green eyes round and glassy.

But no. No, that wouldn't be enough. Too quick. Tom wants the imposter to feel the same pain he feels, now - the same hopelessness and betrayal and _suffering_.

Wiping the bloody tears from his cheeks, he breathes.

_Composure is key._

Forcing the scowl from his face, Tom leaves the bathroom and goes to the entrance to the room, noting disinterestedly the appearance of large mirror he's sure wasn't there, before. When he turns the knob, utterly disregarding the liar's words, he finds it won't budge. It stings his hand instead, and the boy stumbles back, his face twisting.

"I'll kill him," he whispers aloud, staring at the door. _I'll kill him. As soon as he walks in the room._

And for a long time, Tom stands there, waiting.

* * *

When Harry opens the door to his home for the night, a jar of ointment in his free hand, it is to find himself under attack. Tom is standing little more than a meter away, gaze locked on his face, and it is only Harry's recognition of the look in the boy's eyes that saves him.

"_Protego!" _he yells, his soldier's instincts shielding him as Tom's magic lunges for his throat, crackling in the air like electricity as it fights to get past the magical barrier he's erected around himself. Harry drops the jar, and Tom is snarling, hissing, but despite his frightening control of his abilities, he's no match for the soldier the Boy Who Lived has become (not yet), and Harry easily flings him back.

"You _little-!"_

Tom is sent reeling with the force of the spell, knocking over a small table in his fall. He glares nastily at Harry, trying to regain his feet, but the older male doesn't give him the chance.

_"Petrificus Totalus!"_

He watches with vindictive satisfaction as Tom's arms and legs snap together, and the boy cries out before his jaw snaps shut, too. Only his eyes remain free, cartoonishly wide and moving rapidly about as Harry stalks toward him.

"You ungrateful little _prat!" _he seethes, green eyes burning. "You just - you really just tried to_ kill me -_ a full-grown wizard! And after all I've...I thought you were supposed to be _smart_."

Tom can say nothing, but the hatred in his gaze speaks well enough for him.

Harry looks back, and blanches at the boy's ravaged face - at the deep, angry gouges in his cheeks. Blood is dried brown to the wounds. The anger bleeds out of Harry at the sight, the color draining from his own face as he kneels to better examine the damage.

"Did you...?" he swallows thickly, his mouth parting as he looks at Tom with horror. "Did you _do_ that to yourself?"

Of course Tom can't answer, but the look in his eyes is confirmation enough. Harry stares at him, deeply unsettled, and wonders if he shouldn't take the boy to see a mind healer before beginning their new life. It's clear that Lord Voldemort had problems even as a young child.

Already they're off to a terrible start, and he again considers Obliviating the boy as he raises his wand and heals the wounds.

_But I could damage his mind further if I botch the spell,_ he muses, frowning.

"Perhaps I should return you to the orphanage," he says aloud, once Tom's face is restored to pale perfection. "Since you clearly don't like me..."

The boy's eyes go comically wide at his words.

_Don't_, they tell him, a silent plea that Tom's lips will never utter. _Please, don't._

Harry tilts his head, studying his future nemesis. He won't actually do it, but Tom's reaction is interesting. Clearly, he didn't consider the ramifications of Harry's death.

_So, you're just like your future self in that regard_, he thinks. _Ruled by your anger. Your hate._

"I won't do that, Tom," he says softly, reaching out on impulse to thread his fingers through the boy's dark hair. The other squeezes his eyes shut at the touch. _Hiding_, Harry realizes. "I made you a promise, to stay with you...And however much you hate me, I...I intend to keep it."

_It's all I have left. _

Reaching out through the bond, Harry feels fear and hate and confusion from Tom, mingled with humiliation and that terrible fury. Pulling his hand away, he sighs.

"You're not going to hurt yourself - or me - again," he tells the child. "If you do, there will be dire consequences. I'm a wizard, Tom. Cross me, and you'll see more of what I can do. This body-binding spell? Child's play."

Hoping he's scared the boy enough, Harry stands and creates a bed for him, on the wall opposite the one he means to sleep in.

"As punishment for your behavior," he continues, levitating Tom towards his creation. "You will spend the night like this. I'll lift the spell in the morning. Hopefully you'll have learned your lesson, by then..."

He sets Tom down, noting with displeasure that the boy didn't bother to change into the pajamas he provided. Feeling more than a little spiteful, Harry magicks them onto him anyway, ignoring the fury that radiates from Tom's corpse-still form as he turns and retrieves the ointment.

Stripping out of his newly-repaired robes (after making sure he's out of Tom's line of sight), Harry begins to apply the ointment, which takes him nearly an hour, as he has to pause every minute or so before the sting of the burns becomes too much.

_Little prat,_ he thinks grumpily, when he's done. Donning a newly-created set of his own pajamas, he casts a numbing spell at his back and heads, at last, for the warmth of his bed and the promise of sleep, hardly sparing Tom a glance.

_He'll get over it_, Harry tells himself, unaware of the gears turning rapidly in the boy's mind. _I'll start looking for a house tomorrow..._

Sliding into the sheets, Harry is careful to lay on his stomach. The pillows are very soft, the bed warm. He finds it...strange - _wrong_ \- to be falling asleep, safe and comfortable, when just hours ago he was running for his life, sure that everything was over. When fear and guilt and the weight of his name have kept him awake most nights for the past year.

_Feels unreal. _

His thoughts turn to the strange time-turner, tucked deep in his robe pocket, and a moment later it appears in his hand. Turning it this way and that, Harry is disturbed at his lack of surprise. He is even more unsettled at the fact that it doesn't really look like a time-turner, now that he examines it closely. It has the two outer rings, but they lack the little protruding parts with which one turns back time, and the disc is there at the center - but there is a circle where the hourglass should be. It looks like...

Tucking the device under his pillow, he frowns at nothing. Surely the thing is a time-turner.

_What else could it be?_

That line of thought frightens him, though, and Harry closes his eyes, resolving to save that mystery for another day. It is only now that he realizes how exhausted he is - how guilty. His friends will never enjoy the luxury of a simple bed, again, and -

The tears are hot and fast as they travel down his cheeks, startling him, and Harry quickly erects a silencing charm around his bed. His body trembles, and he buries his face in his pillow as their faces are shoved to the forefront of his mind, where he can no longer ignore them. The dead and the lost, strangers and loved ones.

He remembers Hermione's smile and Ron's laugh and Ginny's warmth, the warmth he so desperately craves, now, here beside him. He remembers every bad thing he ever said to her, every fight he ever had with Ron, all the times he disregarded Hermione's words. Harry sighs and weeps and misses them.

He misses his fellow Gryffindors, and gentle Hagrid, and stern but well-meaning Professor Mcgonagall. He misses twinkling blue eyes, and soft guidance, and flying on his broom. He misses Hogwarts, his first real home, the last beacon of his childhood, and as he lays there, weeping quietly, Harry knows he'd give anything to go back to the days when he walked its halls, his biggest worry being the clearing of his name as whispers floated to him from the walls.

He even misses Snape.

But all that is beyond him now, as ruined as his innocence, and the realization makes Harry cry harder.

For a life forever lost. For a future that could have been.

_Will be, if I have anything say about it..._

With this thought in mind, Harry falls into sleep - and dreams.

* * *

_He is walking through a strange, foggy place with many doors._

_The fog carresses his skin like faint fingers, leaving Harry uncomfortable and almost dazed. It is everywhere, blurring everything into strange, distorted shapes; except the doors. They are the only distinguishable sight in this realm of nothingness, each door identical to the one before it, all of them arranged in neat little rows that stretch as far as the eye can see._

_Harry looks at them and knows that he is not supposed to be here. The knowledge comes from deep within his bones, roils in the core from which his magic comes. He is not supposed to be here, no one is, and as he looks around, anxious to leave but unwilling to try one of the doors, he spots another figure. It's dressed in dark flowing robes, with a hood drawn over its head, reminding Harry uncomfortably of Voldemort. It's standing in front of one of the doors, and this one differs from the others in that it is scorched and blackened._

_The sight of the door ruined like that disturbs Harry deeply, though he's not sure why. It is only his anxious desire to leave this place that makes him step towards the figure._

_"Um, excuse me," he calls, feeling foolish._

_The figure's head snaps up. It looks at him, and although Harry can't see its face, the weight of its gaze is crushing. His breath catching, he steps back, just as the figure steps toward him._

"You,"_ it murmurs, advancing slowly. "How did you get here?"_

_It's voice, though barely above a whisper, is strikingly familiar, and Harry stutters, "I - well, I, um...I don't rightly know. Isn't this...isn't this a dream?"_

_"...A dream?" the figure echoes, with a soft, strange sound. "I've asked myself that, many times. But dreams... don't last eternities, Harry Potter. So, no. I think not."_

_"...How...how do you know my name?" Harry asks, struggling to hide the effect the figure's answer has on him. It radiates power - _**age**_ \- and he feels in its presence the way he imagines an ant must feel when a human looms above it, blocking out the world._

_"I know many things," the figure says quietly, watching his retreat. "...I know everything about you, Boy Who Lived. Now tell me - how did you come by this place?"_

_"Does it matter?" he asks, clenching his fists. There is something in one of them._

_"It is of the utmost importance," the figure tells him. And then it falls silent as Harry opens his right hand. The time-turner is glowing brightly in the center of his palm. As he stares at it, dumbfounded, the figure goes very still._

_"You have it," it breathes_. "You have it."

_Sensing a shift in the atmosphere, Harry closes his hand, pressing his fist protectively against his chest._

_"Give it to me," the figure demands, and the urgency in its tone is frightening. "Now."_

_Harry shakes his head. "I...No."_

_"Fool," the figure whispers, advancing again. "You don't understand..."_

_And Harry is frozen at its approach, at the otherworldly aura that permeates in warm waves from its shadowed form. He finds he can do nothing as it reaches for his fist, and the time-turner clenched within it. But the figure's gloved hand is repelled by some invisible force that brushes Harry's flesh, and it sighs heavily, stepping back._

_"Of course," it murmurs, seemingly to itself. "Of course. It could never be that easy..."_

_"What - what are you talking about?" Harry demands. He still cannot see the figure's face, though it stands less than a yard from him, and something like repulsion wells in his gut at its proximity._

Not human_, he realizes, and, as though hearing his thoughts, it tells him, "No, Harry Potter, I am not. Not anymore. There are so many things you don't understand, yet - but I can't explain them, now. Doing so would take many years, and we don't have much time."_

_The figure looks around, gaze focusing on something deep within the fog that Harry himself cannot see._

_"He's coming," it says, so softly that the teen almost doesn't catch it. Yet the words send a chill down his spine, and a deep sense of foreboding fills his body._

_"Who?" Harry asks, in a hushed tone. The time-turner burns hot in his palm._

_"Tell me," the figure's head snaps back to him, ignoring his question. "Where are you?"_

_"I-"_

_"It is of the utmost importance, Harry," the figure whispers, as a second form emerges, stark black, in the fog to his left. It is advancing towards them, dark and terrible, and every instinct in Harry's body screams at him to flee. But the figure is clutching his arms, hands like cold steel, and at its touch something shifts within him - suddenly he is looking into his own frightened face, his green eyes round with confusion and terror. He speaks, and watches with a sense of surrealism as his lips move to form his thoughts._

_"What are you t-"_

_"_Tell me where you are!" _the figure hisses, while the black form stalks towards them. Its approach is preceded by a frigid cold that stabs his skin like knives, licks his insides like a cold tongue. Harry senses that this newcomer is as ancient and unfathomable as the one before him - he feels like an insect, caught between the stretching shadows of two gods._

**"Harry," **_the dark form murmurs, its words clear though it is still a fair distance away, and cold fingers crawl down Harry's back_**. "At last..."**

_The voice burrows deep into his mind, warm honey and rusted nails - as foreign as it is familiar. He shrinks back, wanting nothing more than to turn and sprint until his legs give out. The time-turner scorches his skin now, it's burning so brightly, and the steel hands fall away._

_"I must go, now," the figure whispers, as the foggy realm melts into nothing under the light of the blazing device. "But we will meet again, Harry Potter. Rest assured..."_

_The light blinds him, and the ground vanishes from beneath his feet, sending Harry plummeting into the darkness of true sleep. Before he is pulled under, he hears the figure's voice. It is soft, certain, and most certainly not assuring:_

"I will find you."

* * *

_**A/N: Dun dun dun! **_

_**What's that? The beginnings of...a plot?! Yeah, I devised a storylin**__**e, and I'm kind of excited about it. Hope you guys are, too!**_

_**Thanks for reading, and constructive criticism is always welcome!**_


	5. V: of darkness and dreams

**_A/N: More than 100 reviews, favorites, and follows - wow, you guys make me giddy! Thanks so much, I'm sorry for the wait - thankfully summer's come up, so I'll have a lot more time on my hands. There are still lots of reviews I need to respond to, and I'm sorry about that, but please be patient with me!_**

**_I hope you enjoy this chapter, and any feedback is appreciated!_**

**_Couldn't do it without you guys. ;)_**

* * *

Chapter 5

* * *

_ "She generally gave herself very good advice, (though she very seldom followed it), and sometimes she scolded herself so severely as to bring tears into her eyes; and once she remembered trying to box her own ears for having cheated herself in a game of croquet she was playing against herself, for this curious child was very fond of pretending to be two people."_

_\- Lewis Carroll, Alice In Wonderland_

* * *

**°° In Wonderland °°**

_He prays, in the darkness._

_It is thick, suffocating, closing in on him like some sadistic beast that revels in his terror. In this way it is much like the man, the one who never smiles, who kicks and picks and screams at him, fat face purpling with wrath and perhaps a little insanity._

_"Stupid little wretch!" the man often bellows, dragging him from the cramped little cupboard at strange, unpredictable times of the day, though the boy can never remember what he's done to earn the beatings. They hurt. They hurt so badly. His body is a hideous canvas of dark, blotchy marks, finger-shaped bruises snaking around his neck and white wrists. Long ago, he used to cry at the pain they brought him - at the darkness and the loneliness and the hate in the fat man's eyes._

One, two, three, four...

_He would do anything for that loathing to fade. The man calls him bad - evil - devil, though he tries, tries so hard to be good. He makes no noise in the prison, and when the man pulls him out for his punishment, the boy does not resist, biting back the whimpers and the screams and hot tears._

_But nothing pleases him. If anything the boy's submissiveness makes him angrier, and it has been four days now since he has eaten. His stomach aches terribly, but he dares not voice his suffering. He's learned very well that the man listens for such things._

One, two, three, four...

_He's not sure what comes after four. He vaguely remembers that woman teaching him, her horsey face twisted with distaste, and anoth_er, _significantly fatter boy sitting beside him, pinching his arm in a manner meant to inflict pain. But they're gone, now. He hasn't seen them in a very long time._

_He didn't really like them - the woman never hugged him like she did the fat boy, and the fat boy liked to hurt him, too - but the man was nicer when they were around. He'd never touched the boy, then - merely yelled at him occasionally._

_Now he is the source of his nightmares._

_Knobby knees pressed to his chest, the boy closes his eyes against the moving darkness and the throbbing agony that lives in his skin. He presses his hands together._

_He's not sure who he's praying to, or if he's doing it right, but the practice calms him. It makes the darkness a little more bearable, the shadow of the man not quite as fearsome._

"_Please," he whispers, through cracked lips. "Please..."_

_But God doesn't answer. He hears, instead, the dreaded stomp of footsteps._

* * *

Tom lays awake, lost in thought.

He refuses to sleep, too frightened by the stiffness of his limbs, his body as unmoving as a slab of stone beneath the scratchy sheets. Some time has passed since his attempt on the liar's life, and the man lies just out of his view, now, sleeping soundly.

_Loathsome maggot._

Tom still harbors a well-stoked hatred for the green-eyed imposter, but his earlier fury has simmered down to a deep resentment. It is well into the day, after all, and one can only hold on to homicidal rage for so long. Especially when one can't move. His current mood is one of contemplation as he stares at the ceiling.

He'd...acted foolishly, again.

No, not just foolishly - _stupidly_. What had possessed him to think he could take on one whose powers clearly outclassed his? Such impulsivity isn't like him, and as Tom studies a hairline crack in the plaster above, he realizes he needs to correct this. The near-suicidal recklessness, the childish gullibility that landed him here in the first place; all of these are prime characteristics of lesser beings - _insects_ \- and the very idea that he's lowered himself, even temporarily, to _their_ level is enough to make his teeth grind.

Or it would be. If he could move his jaw.

But that line of thinking just makes Tom angry again, so he closes his eyes (the only part of him not frozen corpse-stiff) and counts, very slowly, to ten. It doesn't soothe the resurging agitation, but it does help to ground his thoughts...

And, because he's bored and angry, Riddle decides to hone that important muscle known as the _imagination_. Eyes still closed, he pictures the liar in the darkness of his mind, looming over him with his unkempt hair and weary, old green eyes.

He imagines those eyes going wide with realization, and then fear, and now the man is shrinking back, arms raised defensively as Riddle - the ugly thing roaring inside him - advances.

"Tom," the imposter starts to plea, though the action doesn't quite fit him. Even so, Riddle relishes the sound, covets the look in those dim emeralds as the liar realizes it's all useless. That Tom Riddle knows nothing of mercy.

Only retribution. Only revenge.

_**(For the pain and the humiliation and the hope that had come to life so brilliantly in his chest)**_

An eye for an eye, and all that.

_I'm going to hurt you,_ Riddle thinks, and in his mind, he does. In his mind, Tom destroys the imposter, burns him with his magic, breaks each of his fingers (so gentle on his cheeks), bruises his colorless skin.

But through it all, the liar merely looks at him. His gaze, even in Tom's own mind, is piercing, and as Riddle stares back a flood of memories come back, unbidden.

_"...and we'll be together, father and son..."_

The liar's face, through the bruises, is tired.

_"I'm not your father."_

His eyes are sad.

_"I'm here, Tom."_

Pitying.

_"I won't leave you."_

Those last words in particular send something fierce and ugly spearing through Tom's gut. He wants to scream again - to howl and cry and kill something, specifically the _maggot_ on the bed opposite his - but he can't move, _he can't move_, so instead Riddle turns back within himself, as he always has, focusing again on the - _imaginary_ \- imposter who stares unblinkingly at him.

Fueled by an animalistic fury and the strange ache in his chest, Riddle attacks the imaginary liar with all of his hate; he rips at the man, hangs him from the rafters, tears him limb from limb, gouges out those old green eyes.

And it is glorious - vivid - terrible -

But _not enough._

No...after exposing Tom so thoroughly, after daring to stand over him and glare down as if superior...

_Unacceptable_.

_Unforgivable_.

He aches for more than fantasy, now. The ugly thing needs blood.

_I'll kill him._

It is a raw, savage desire that eats at his insides like some ravenous beast, gnawing at his heart and the back of his brain, settling deep in his bones.

He will be the one to see the light fade from those eyes, Tom decides. After they're filled with a sufficient amount of suffering, of course.

With this goal in mind, the boy sits up. An inferno burns within him.

And the liar's magic falls away under the force of his hate, compressed now into an icy space within his ribs that tears away the rest of his binds. Eyes locked on the lump stirring restlessly in the bed opposite his, Tom tosses the sheets away from himself (quietly, quietly) and swings his legs to the floor.

Rising soundlessly, he pads with the stealth of a feline to the other bed, magic gathered tightly around him. He doesn't want to wake the liar up, not yet. Tom's homicidal, not an idiot. He's learned.

Pressing one knee into the bed, he waits for it to creak, for the liar to wake up and restrain him again. It doesn't. The man continues to shift as though agitated, but he seems to be asleep. Creeping forward a little more, Tom is about to restrain the imposter with his magic in a delicious twist of irony, when the older male goes completely still.

The change is so sudden that Riddle leaps back with an undignified squeak, sure the man has woken and is about to attack him. When seconds pass, and he remains unharmed, he takes a deep breath and crawls forward a little more, enough that his arms and legs are on either side of the sleeping man's body. His core is pulsing with slow, sweet warmth again, but Tom forces it back. However powerful the feeling is, his hate is much stronger.

Peering into the man's smooth face, he wonders at the sudden change. The other's body has gone rigid as a board, his chest moving up and down at such slow intervals that Tom wonders at first if he's breathing.

But the inexplicable connection between them is still flowing strongly, enough that it's getting hard to think clearly. The liar must surely be alive...

_The stick,_ he remembers suddenly. _Where is it?_

A wand, the man called it. A mere flick of it had sent him flying, earlier, and as Tom glances around he wonders if he can use it for himself, once he's killed its current owner.

_I'll look for it later_, he resolves, turning his attention back to his soon to be victim. Leaning down so that their noses brush, he allows his magic to cloak the older male, restraining him, though Riddle knows somehow that it won't be necessary. Whatever occurs, the man won't be waking up any time soon.

So Tom studies him.

Gearing himself up for his first kill, he takes in the man's wild black locks, the thin face, the odd-shaped scar that keeps drawing his eye for no real reason. It is strange; a part of him longs to touch it, but a greater part does not, and so he decides to ignore it for now, returning his attention to the canvas as a whole. As much as Tom loathes the imposter, he can admit there is...a beauty in him, one that Riddle sees clearly but finds hard to describe.

And, however murderous he feels right now, Tom can always appreciate beauty.

He thinks that it's almost a waste.

His examination darts to the long black lashes that hide brilliant green. Tom wants to see those eyes, now. He wants to see them widen, with suffering and humiliation and...and _betrayal_...

Like the kind he'd inflicted on Tom.

Mouth twisting, he raises his hand, a strange impulse guiding him as he traces the lines of the man's face, fingers gentle with fascination.

_I'm going to kill you,_ Tom thinks, his breath hitching. He's unsure what it is that's bubbling in his chest, hot and sharp, but he likes it, is thrilled by it, and with a heavy breath his forehead droops against the liar's. Through the sudden haze he registers that the other's skin is cool, nearly icy, but it is nothing compared to the frigid waves that roil from Tom's core. Pressing small, shaking hands to the older male's biceps, he closes his eyes and concentrates.

His thoughts are nearly drowned in a slow gush of warmth, but again Riddle pushes it back, focusing instead on the swelling pressure in his chest. It rose within him before, back when he killed that rabbit, but it is even sharper now, stabbing his insides. This is different. So different.

He is about to kill a human being.

The thought should sicken him, make him shy away in horror, but instead the hot, sharp feeling grows more intense, and his heart begins a rapid, excited rhythm as his magic presses down.

The liar immediately tenses, his eyes still firmly shut (much to Tom's relief and frustration) as his own magic rises up to clash with Riddle's. Tom is unprepared for the wild, scalding energy, but he refuses to retreat, instead using the man's unconsciousness against him and forcing wave upon wave of icy magic down on him.

_Open your eyes._

Because he's winning, the careful control of his own power fighting and overtaking the chaotic magic of the other. All he has to do is press down just a little more, guide the frost of his magic down into the liar's lungs, around his heart...

Buy as he looks down at the groaning man, Tom finds he is still unsatisfied - it's not enough -

He wants to see his _eyes_.

He wants to see them widening with horrible realization, and then terror, and then rage. He wants to see bright green grow dim and glassy with death...

He wants...

Gritting his teeth, Tom squeezes his eyes shut, his nails digging into the other's biceps as he lashes downwards at the cool body beneath his. The man, still unconscious, hisses loudly. The sound leaves Riddle thrilled; but it's_ not enough._ It won't be. Not until the liar opens his eyes and Tom sees, shining there in the vivid green, the same anger and pain and betrayal that tore at Tom's insides hours before.

Riddle wants the liar to _suffer_, but not just physically. No, he means to inflict that other kind, the agony that goes deeper than flesh. The kind that chills the blood and rots the tongue, shoved between the ribs like cold steel...

And from this seedling if vengeful desire, an idea begins to sprout.

Opening his eyes, Tom lifts the assault of his magic. His hands move from the liar's arms to the unruly black locks atop his head. He cards his fingers through them as the man did earlier in the park, his fingers deceptively gentle as he studies the imposter.

He does this for a very long time, the excitement of earlier simmering down to deep contemplation. His thoughts turn over countless images and nuggets of fantasy, adding and discarding, until the base outline of a plot takes root in his brain.

_You will adore me_, Tom thinks to the liar, his mouth parted slightly as the pad of his thumb brushes smooth, pallid skin. _No - love me. And I will tear you apart._

It would be the sweetest retribution; a perfect combination of irony and base cruelty. Trick the man into caring for him, and then rip it all away - just as he'd done to Tom. He's already got it worked out in his mind, a game that will begin with sweet lies and roses blinding in their beauty - only to end with the truth and cold steel...because Riddle fully intends to destroy the man who dared to hurt him so. He means to do so _thoroughly._

It won't be as easy as he's used to, but Tom's always had a silver tongue, a queer sort of charm that draws people to him like flies to flame. The liar will be no different, he's sure - but he will require _effort. _

Tom finds himself excited at the prospect.

Yes, the liar's ruination will be a game for him. A self-imposed challenge he is determined to fulfill. Tom will charm the man and dote on him in an elaborate farce - and won't it be so much more _satisfying_, then, to have the imposter settled utterly in the palm of his little hand, only to wake and witness as his angelic little Tom murders him without thought, without the slightest bit of remorse?

Laughter bubbling in his throat, Tom moves his hands to the liar's cheeks and presses a chaste kiss to the cool skin of the other's forehead, right over the peculiar scar. The moment his lips touch the rough flesh, however, something scalding runs through him, and in his mind blooms the strangest image: a woman with flaming hair and strikingly familiar green eyes. She is dressed in odd clothes, her arms spread protectively, shielding something - pleading.

_"Not Harry, please no, take me, kill me instead-"_

Tom jumps away from the liar as though burned, his heart pounding and a woman's scream ringing in his ears. His legs are unsteady beneath him as he climbs off the bed, stumbling back, panting and looking at his future victim with huge eyes.

_What was that?_ he wonders, his mind racing as he struggles to collect himself.

_Who was she?_

The sight of that woman stirs something deep within him, something inexplicably archaic and terrible.

_She had the man's eyes,_ he thinks, retreating slowly, sweat building on his skin.

_Harry. _

That was what the man called himself in the park, wasn't it? _Harry_, though Tom can't remember his last name. He pauses for a moment, trying to recall it, when he remembers that he hates the man and so his name doesn't matter. The liar will always be just that to Tom.

And so he moves back to his bed, sitting at the edge of it and waiting for the liar to wake up. It is well into the afternoon by now, and so he expects that should be soon. In the meantime, Tom must compose himself. He has a lot to think about, particularly that woman, though the memory of her makes him curiously ill.

Once the man awakens, though, the game will begin, and Riddle expects his current unease will drain away easily enough. He's always enjoyed a good challenge, after all. This one will be a bit more difficult, the stakes higher, but he's confident he will succeed.

A wicked grin splits his face.

_And it will be **glorious. **_

* * *

Harry opens his eyes, and is confused.

There is a brief moment of blissful ignorance, in which he wonders why the ceiling is so low, the room so quiet...and then he remembers.

Oh.

Yes, that's right, his friends are dead. Murdered by Voldemort and his servants. Oh, yes, and he's been sent back in time a couple of decades, in the late thirty's, actually, with a much younger, equally homicidal Voldemort under his guardianship, now.

Well.

A lesser man would've had a nervous breakdown by now, but Harry's used to being overwhelmed, and so he allows that familiar numbness to come over, washing out, at least temporarily, the pain that gnaws mercilessly at his insides. Sitting up, he reaches instinctively for the wand under his pillow, only to come up with the time-turner.

An odd feeling takes hold of him as he studies it again, examining closely the characteristics that set it apart from the one Hermione owned. Frowning, he brings it up to his eye. He feels like he's forgetting something.

_"I will find you," _someone whispers in the back of his mind, and with a chill Harry looks for his wand. He finds it resting a little further under his pillow, close to being swallowed by the crevice between the mattress and the headboard of the bed, and with a murmured spell he dons his robes, tucking the device in his pocket. He'll devote more time to discovering its secrets, later. Right now...

Standing, Harry winces at the still-stinging pain on his back. His eyes dart to his new charge, and he freezes.

Riddle is reclining on the other bed, watching him. But his arms are folded across his chest, his legs crossed at the ankles. His head tilts freely to the side under Harry's wide-eyed stare.

"Good morning," he says quietly, no trace of darkness in his eyes. Rather, Riddle's face is curiously blank, hiding masterfully any of what he might be feeling as Harry continues to look dumbly at him.

"Good morning," he returns, finally, his tone just as even. He raises his wand.

"How did you get free of my spell?"

Tom's eyes dart to the wand, and something flashes in his eyes. Head still tilted, he asks,

"What would you do if I told you I don't know?"

"...I would say that you were lying," Harry tells him. "I am very good at spells, Tom. Particularly this one. I've used it to topple opponents much bigger than you. It doesn't lift unless I will it - or someone manages to free themselves."

It's happened before. Harry's petrified many Death Eaters in the past, and only the most powerful have ever managed to lift it by themselves, be it on purpose or through sheer bursts of angry magic. He can't believe a ten-year-old would be powerful enough to manage such a feat, though.

And if he did...then Harry has been sleeping, completely defenseless, while the child who attempted to murder him earlier has had free use of his limbs. Swallowing back a pulse of fear, he resolves to check himself for any abnormalities as soon as this interrogation is finished. But surely he's fine. He would know if something like that was done to him.

Wouldn't he?

"Tell me the truth, Tom," Harry says, his magic, sharp and agitated, filling the air. He hasn't forgotten the assault (both of them) from earlier this morning, either, and its not helping foster any good feelings towards the kid he's supposed to be raising, now.

"Tell me the truth," he repeats. "Or I'll petrify you again. And you'll stay that way, this time."

"You wouldn't dare," Tom says softly, sitting up.

"Don't. Try me."

Riddle pales, and Harry almost feels bad. He isn't going to actually do such a thing, but he's gotten horrifically good when it comes to threatening others. Few risk calling his bluffs. Tom is no different, it seems, and his mouth twists as he admits,

"Fine. I broke the spell myself. I was still very angry from before, and my magic rose up...and suddenly I was free."

He lifts one thin shoulder in a shrug, and Harry studies him, surprised. He didn't honestly think Riddle would give in so quickly - or that he'd actually broken free himself.

Well, the latter doesn't surprise him so much.

_I'll need to watch him carefully - this is (no, would've been) Voldemort._

Suspicious, he steps closer and asks,

"What did you do once you were free?"

Tom's legs fold to his chest, his chin resting on his knees. His eyes are not bright like they were before, but they sparkle now with something that leaves Harry deeply unsettled, and his hand tightens around his wand as Riddle tells him honestly,

"Well, I was going to kill you."

Harry scowls, the color draining from his face. He isn't terribly surprised - only confused as to why he didn't immediately wake up. "And why didn't you?"

"Because," Tom drawls. "Your death would hurt me in the long run. I refuse to go back to the orphanage; I want to learn more about the wizarding world. As it is, you're the only wizard I know, and thus you are too useful to kill."

_Now_, is the unspoken word that Harry hears, but he forces his expression to soften with supposed ignorance. Tom is staring innocently up at him, probably smug inside, confident he's secured Harry's belief with his honesty.

Well, he may not be the brightest bulb in the box, but he'd like to think he's no longer as dense when it comes to these things. Tom means to kill him, Harry's sure of it. The hairs on the back of his neck are standing up like they've done so often in the past, when he was in the midst of battle and through the chaos spotted _him_, Voldemort, green clashing with crimson -

This time, the color is different, but the eyes are the same. Tom thinks he's hiding it well, the pretentious little twat, and were he dealing with any other person, he would be. But Harry knows what to look for. He sees that familiar glimmer, and barely manages to keep his own mask in place.

_Ungrateful little..._

But Harry is supposed to be setting Tom Riddle on a different path, and cursing him will most certainly not achieve that. They're already off to a terrible start...

_I'll just have to keep an eye on him_, Harry decides. Tom is extraordinarily powerful for his age, but the teen is still superior in overall skill. He'll have to use that to his advantage. Once Tom learns to hone his abilities, however...

_I'll worry about that another day._

For now, he needs to see about their living arrangements. Harry doesn't relish making a life in this time, when the world is even more flawed, but he's resigned to it. He'll raise Tom to be better.

"Yes," Harry says slowly. "I'm...glad you understand that. And...and I apologize, for all this. For lying to you."

The words are sour on his tongue - if anything, Riddle should be pleading for his forgiveness, after trying to kill him (twice!), not to mention the still stinging burns on his back - but Harry knows that forcing an apology from the boy will do nothing but make the tension between them infinitely worse. If he must swallow his pride to appease Riddle, then so be it. Doesn't make him any less irritated, though.

"Alright," Riddle says, neither accepting nor denying the apology.

They assess each other in silence for a moment, before Harry sighs and turns away.

"Well, we've got a long day ahead of us, Tom. Do you think you could refrain from trying to kill me while I find us a house?"

Tom stills. "A house?"

Harry gives him an odd look. "Yes. You didn't think we were living here, did you?"

Tom's blank look says he did. Resisting the urge to roll his eyes, Harry murmurs a cleaning spell and then flicks his wand at Tom, who tenses as Harry's magic washes over him.

"What did you do?" he asks suspiciously, rising from the bed. The oversized t-shirt hangs off his thin frame, swallowing it like Dudley's t-shirts once did Harry's. The boy before him is a far cry from the neatly dressed, carefully composed child of yesterday and early this morning. Harry resists the weird and sudden urge to smile.

"Cleaning spell," he murmurs, waving his wand again. Tom gasps as the pajamas transform into the drab gray clothes assigned to him by the orphanage.

"I'll buy you a proper set of robes later," Harry assures him, turning away to gather their sparse possessions. All he really has is his wand, the time-turner, the burn ointment, and a sizable sack of galleons which he means to spend shortly.

_I know where we can go,_ he thinks, his heart rate speeding up. _I know the perfect place..._

Handing Tom his pillowcase full of things, he tidies up the room, transfiguring the extra bed and the large mirror back to their original forms. It's all done absently; Harry's mind is consumed now with that place, and he wonders, his wand hand shaking with excitement, why he didn't think of it before.

_But could I do it?_ he ponders, frowning. His eyes slide to the boy. _Is it right to bring **him** there, of all people? _

It takes first prize for irony, certainly...

"C'mon," he says softly, holding his hand out to Tom, who stares at it distrustfully.

"Where are we going?" he asks, frowning.

"To a very special place," Harry tells him, hand still extended.

Tom's eyes narrow. He looks around the room, considering, and then slowly, carefully, places his hand in Harry's.

Harry closes his eyes, calling the area to mind, and apparates.

The coolness of their room is replaced abruptly with the pervading heat of summer and the faint trill of birds. Harry opens his eyes. A familiar mixture of warmth and sadness fills him as he looks down the cobblestone road leading to the quaint village he's seen so often in his dreams. In his nightmares.

"Where are we?" Riddle asks, tugging his hand away. Harry, not at all offended, looks around for any muggles who might've witnessed their arrival. He sees no one. _Good._ Walking forward a little, the teen closes his eyes, breathing deeply. He can almost smell the muted scent of winter, spoiled by the odor he and Hermione hadn't recognized, hadn't known...

His hands are trembling, and he senses Tom's stare, so he shoves the memory away. It's irrelevant, now - a vivid remnant of a distant world.

_I'll make new memories in this place_, Harry thinks, looking down at his new charge.

_I'll erase the stain that lingers here - and what better way than through Tom Riddle's salvation?_

"Where have you taken me?" the boy whispers, his brow furrowed.

"Godric's Hollow," Harry tells him, as the sun beats down above.

_Home._

* * *

"Godric's Hollow," the liar answers, his voice soft and strange. Green eyes slide to him as though the words should have some significance, but they mean nothing to Tom. Frowning up at the man's colorless face, he takes his hand again. It's annoying, but necessary.

The sooner he plays nice, the sooner 'Harry' dies.

Surprise and something else twists the liar's expression, and Tom is sure he'll snatch his hand away; to the boy's surprise he doesn't, his face smoothing as he walks forward a little more.

"C'mon," he says, refusing to meet Tom's eyes. They begin to walk, and for a long time the only sound is their steps on the cobblestone. Tom is unbothered by the silence, his attention rapt on the nearing village, on the thick trees that tower over them and the earthy scent that fills his nose. It's all so different from the noise and bustling of London, plagued by the potent odor and restlessness that fills all cities...

"Godric's Hollow," he whispers to himself, and the man's hand grows clammy as they pass through the gates. Tom casts him an odd look. He is not the only one. People are pausing everywhere, looking at them; children playing in dirt, mothers scolding those children, old men and young women halting in the middle of loud conversation, voices lowering to whispers.

Tom narrows his eyes.

_Could they know we're special?_

But there is no awe, no horror, in the villagers' gazes - only confusion and mild amusement. Tom follows their stares and realizes they're looking at the liar. Or rather, his robes.

And they are unusual, especially in this weather.

Scowling, he whispers, "They're looking at us."

The liar hardly spares him a glance. "So?"

"Aren't you supposed to be hiding your existence? Blending in?"

A faint smile. "Yes. But I hardly think they'll discover what we are through an unusual choice of attire, Tom. Don't worry."

"I'm not _worried_," he sniffs, lifting his chin. "Merely curious. There is a difference."

"Of course," the liar agrees, and there is a patronizing lilt in the words that makes Tom bristle. He forces himself to relax. It'd be counterproductive to snap at the man, right now. Pushing the anger to the back of his mind, he focuses instead on the warmth that trickles from their joined hands to the rest of his body. On the curiosity that spurs his steps.

"Where are we going?" he asks.

The liar doesn't answer. They are passing a small graveyard, now, and his steps have grown quick and hurried, his posture stiff as he refuses to look anywhere but straight ahead. Tom struggles to keep up, even with their hands joined, and finally he snatches his hand away, scowling impressively.

"You have problems," he hisses, but the liar isn't even looking at him. Tom follows his gaze, annoyed, and sees a large house looming over them from behind a short, wrought iron fence. A stone path leads to a heavy, rich oak door, and the grass is lush green despite the searing heat from above. It's a very nice house, but the darkness peering out at them from the bare windows indicates that it's empty.

Tom's anger dissipates as he looks at it, replaced with the same sense of disquiet that filled him upon hearing that red-haired woman's dying scream. Unconsciously, he steps closer to the liar, his hands clenched into fists. Riddle hopes the man will continue walking, but he doesn't. He is instead completely still as he studies the structure; Tom looks at him and is surprised to recognize the same unease in the older male's face.

"...Alright," the liar starts, after an eternity of silence. His voice is low and hoarse. "This is...this is it..."

Riddle's eyes grow huge.

_"What?"_ he demands, his tone sharp. "_This_ is...we're going to live_ here?"_

"Yes," the liar answers absently, searching for something amongst the folds of his robes. Tom sets his pillowcase down, wiping at his sweat beaded forehead as he stares at his companion incredulously.

"Are you daft?" he wonders aloud. "Or just blind? A house like this must cost - cost thousands and thousands of p-"

"Here we are," the man mutters, pulling from his robes a bulging, clinking sack of what can only be a _ridiculous_ amount of coins. He presents it to Tom with an infuriatingly placid expression, just as a man appears to the left of them with a loud popping sound.

Tom jumps away with a loud cry of surprise, and the liar tenses, his hand moving to a place within his robes.

"Good afternoon," the newcomer greets, smiling pleasantly. Tom glares at the man. He is clearly a wizard, dressed just as strangely as the liar in a set of light blue, shimmery robes. A lined, narrow face is home to deepset blue eyes - which are locked rather firmly on the sack the liar holds.

"Good afternoon," the liar says, studying the newcomer in the way a lion might when approached by a potential threat. There is a brief, charged pause, and then: "Do you need something?"

The man is still staring, rather rudely, at the sack. "That's quite a lot of galleons to be handling on your own, boy," he murmurs, ignoring the liar's inquiry. The latter's eyes narrow.

"I asked you a question."

"Ah - you did, you did. Forgive me, it's rather hot today - " he wipes absently at his forehead " - heat addles the brains, you know."

The liar grunts in reply, still watching the stranger - _scanning_ him - with caution in his eyes.

"You own this house?" he asks after a moment, thought it's really more of a statement than a question.

"I do," the man confirms, straightening. So enamored is he with the sack, he has yet to look up. Licking his lips, he inquires, "Why do you ask?"

"I'd like to buy it," the liar says. "Are you perhaps willing to do business?"

Watery blue eyes dart up to the liar's face. The man's smile widens. "Perhaps. But there's quite a bit to real estate, boy, contracts and the like - and you seem...rather young...to be house-hunting."

"I'm eighteen," the liar grits, startling Tom. His head swivels to his companion, but the older male ignores him. "And if all that really mattered to you, sir, you wouldn't have bothered showing up."

"I was curious," the man shrugs. "We don't get many visitors at this quaint little village of ours...and I sensed you on my property." Small eyes fix to the sack again.

"I'm Doyle," he murmurs, holding out a thin hand. "Doyle Diggins. You are...?"

The liar is silent for a moment, clearly considering something. Just when Tom thinks he's going to ignore the offered hand, he takes it, green eyes shining with purpose.

"Harry," he says softly. "Harry Potter."

Doyle starts with surprise, before a great grin breaks out acoss his face. Shaking the other's hand now with unnecessary vigor, he murmurs,

"_Potter_, you say? Oh my, why didn't you _say_ so, my dear boy? To be the scion of such lineage...It is _v__ery_ nice to...to make..."

Doyle quiets abruptly, his mouth slightly ajar as he stares, transfixed, into 'Harry's' eyes.

"...Sir?" the liar prompts, frowning.

Doyle continues to stare dumbly at him, still holding his hand.

_"...Beautiful_," he whispers, and the expression on his face reminds Tom of a moth being helplessly drawn to the lethal light of a flame. Intrigued (and a little annoyed that he's being ignored), he glances between the two, wondering silently if the liar did something to cause this sudden change in Doyle, but 'Harry' looks just as confused (and disturbed) as Tom.

"Um," he tries to take his hand back, but Doyle is still clutching it, his eyes very wide. His mouth is hanging open, giving him a stupid, struck-dumb look. The man looks as though he's seen a ghost - or perhaps an angel. The liar forces his limb away, stumbling back a little.

"Will you sell me the house or not?" he growls.

Doyle blinks owlishly for a moment. He continues to stare, transfixed, at the liar, before jumping a little, as though startled.

"I..."

He rubs his forehead, looking dazed.

"What...?"

"Mr. Diggins," the liar says forcefully. It's clear he's run out of patience. Doyle snaps to attention, pale eyes glued almost helplessly to the other male's face.

"Y-yes," he stammers, pulling out his wand. His expression is clouded with what Tom realizes is fear. Fear, and rapture - and something else. "O-of course, Mr. Potter. Of course."

Doyle fumbles for his wand. "H-here."

Tom's eyes widen as a short length of parchment appears in the air between the two.

Eying Doyle warily, the liar steps forward to read the neat black ink.

"This is the deed?" he asks, brows raising.

"I - yes - it's - it's yours."

Mr. Potter gives him an incredulous look.

"You're - hold on - you're _giving_ it to me?"

"Yes, sir," the thin man nods vigorously, his eyes very large in his face. "Yours."

"...You don't want the money?"

"I-" Doyle mouth twists, but then he meets Harry's gaze again, and his expression goes strangely relaxed, becoming almost dreamy as whatever he was about to say dies on his lips.

"Yours," he breathes again. "All yours..."

The liar looks dumbfounded. He and Tom exchange a glance, and the former's face is so utterly baffled that the boy has no choice but to believe it is some other force behind the strange enchantment on Doyle's face.

"...Thank you," the liar says eventually. "You're...you're very kind."

Slowly, cautiously, he reaches up and takes the deed, tucking the bag of money back into his robes.

The moment his hand makes contact with the parchment, the gate to the house swings open, and various lights turn on from within. The liar watches this, swallowing thickly.

"Th-thanks," he says again. "My - my brother and I are...extremely grateful..."

He draws Tom to his side, and the boy is too startled to resist, staring up at the green-eyed man incredulously.

"Anything for you," the man promises, swaying slightly, and the liar frowns.

"Well, we'll be seeing you," he says quickly, turning and guiding Tom towards the house. "Uh...thanks, again."

"Of course," Doyle breathes. His eyes follow them all the way into the house. "Of course."

Tom turns on the liar the moment he closes the door.

"What was that?" he hisses, as the older male sags against the rich oak.

"I...I don't know," the liar mumbles. He is staring at the paneled wood floor, looking deeply troubled.

"I should've given him the galleons anyway," he mutters, ignoring Tom's appalled look. "Basically robbed the poor sod, just now..."

Sighing heavily, he glances at the deed. "But we really need the money. It's not safe to stop by Gringotts again, not right now, and I'm not even sure if I can get a job, here..."

He closes his eyes. "I really didn't think this through..."

Tom crosses his arms, silent. He's not really sure what to say.

"You didn't...cast a spell on him?" he asks slowly, his eyes roving the interior of the house. It's spacious, utterly bare, and really very nice; Tom glances down the short hallway, leading into what looks to be voluminous living room, and feels his heart pick up speed.

He had once - not long ago - dreamed of something like this. Of being whisked away from the orphanage by his father, the two of them living comfortably in a big house with all the happiness Tom deserves...

His mouth tightens, and he turns to glare at the _liar_, when he finds the older male looking back - studying him in the same wary manner he showed Doyle Diggins, just now. As though he were a puzzle.

As though he were a _threat. _

Tom, startled by the knowledge, stares coolly back, though it is curiously difficult to hold the liar's gaze, to look into those old green eyes...

"No," he intones, and for a moment Tom doesn't know what he's talking about. "That's illegal."

"...Is it?"

"Yes. It's also wrong."

"It got us the house, didn't it?" the boy remarks, a shrug in his words. The man narrows his eyes.

"I told you I didn't do anything to him."

"_Really_?" Tom tilts his head. He knows the liar is telling the truth, but the defensive lift of his chin is interesting, and Riddle's always loved to push. Besides, the two of them are basically strangers - Tom knows next to nothing about his new guardian, and that puts him at a distinct disadvantage on the chess board. Knowledge is power; the more he uncovers of the liar, the more he can use against him. Learning - and testing - Potter's boundaries is a good start...

"He seemed rather...spellbound, once he got a good look at you," Tom comments lightly. "And last time I checked, people don't just give away houses. None so nice, at least..."

The words, chosen carefully, don't get quite the reaction Tom was hoping for; the liar merely looks at him, unmoved.

"You're trying to make me angry," he observes. "But I did nothing to cause the change in that man, Tom. I know I didn't, and I think you know that, too. Now, if you're quite through being childish..."

He pushes off from the door, his shoulders sagging and his eyes hooded as he observes the bare house. Something strange crosses his face for a moment, and then the liar's walking away, pointedly ignoring Tom's icy glare.

"We'd better start fixing this place up," he mutters, his voice reverberating softly against the creamy walls.

He glances over his shoulder.

"Go on, explore the house. You can go ahead and pick a room, if you like..."

* * *

Eight hours later, as the sky deepens to midnight blue with the arrival of the witching hour, Tom collapses at their newly-made kitchen table with a heavy, highly undignified sigh. Potter crashes in the chair opposite him, his hair horribly unkempt and his chin resting heavily in his hand.

Around them are piles of various household items, many of them transfigured from pebbles and blades of grass found outside: there are dishes and a few eating utensils, a sofa that has yet to be stationed in the living room, where it should be, some lamps, a coffee table, and many other odd little items Potter believed would be useful to them. On the second floor, Tom has already chosen the largest bedroom near the stairs. Mainly he'd done so to annoy Potter, certain the man would protest, but again the older male had disappointed him; Potter had merely shaken his head, smiled a little, then went and chose the room at the very end of the hall. It's the smallest bedroom, and Tom had looked at the liar oddly, but the man seemed to have forgotten he was there entirely.

That curious expression had covered his face again, his mouth tightening and his brow furrowing and his eyes dimming with an emotion Tom was unable to identify. It had unsettled him, though - the entire room had made his stomach clench with unease, honestly. The area, bare as it is, strikes him as..._familiar_, somehow, though this is surely impossible; he's never even heard of Godric's Hollow until today.

"Are we done?" he mumbles.

While procuring their new furnishments was easy enough, it was _moving_ them that's really exhausted the two. Positioning them in a way that was satisfactory to both of them took hours, though Tom wonders grudgingly how it is Potter is possibly tired. All he's done all day is stand around and wave that wand of his, while Riddle actually had to _work_; though he's good at unleashing his magic with the intent to harm or defend, it is much harder for him to focus it into something as mundane as lifting objects.

He has a splitting headache, as a result, and it makes him very uncharitable as he slumps across the table, waiting for Potter's response.

"Yes, for now," the man says around a yawn. "All we really have left to do is the living room and some of the kitchen."

He pauses, his eyes darting down to the surface of the table and then back up to Tom's.

"Perhaps," Potter says slowly. "when we're finished, tomorrow, we could take another trip to Diagon Alley. You could purchase some books and...and other things. For your room, and maybe the rest of the house."

Tom is silent for a moment, gauging the older male's face for deceit, an ulterior motive. Potter just stares back. He looks tired - weary, like an old man worn well by the weight of the world.

_I'm eighteen,_ he'd told Doyle earlier, and now that Tom looks, he sees the clear imprint of youth in the softness of the other's face, the way he slouches carelessly (much like Riddle himself) in his chair. He...the liar doesn't look much older than Tom, and again the child wonders at his own foolishness; how could he have ever believed, even for a moment, that this man - this _boy_ \- was his father?

"Alright," he murmurs finally, looking up. It excites him, the thought of visiting that place - Diagon Alley - again, and he's willing to play nice, now, even if his head feels ready to explode.

"Alright," Potter echoes, smiling faintly. It's not real - more a forced quirk of his lips. "Tomorrow - oh, it's midnight, isn't it? Er, today, then."

Tom nods, and Potter nods, and because there's nothing else to say, Tom stands. He moves to turn around and head for the stairs, when he remembers that he's supposed to be pleasant. Repressing a frown, he glances at the older boy.

Potter is still sitting at the table, his gaze burning holes into its surface, and it's clear from his face that he is not here in the kitchen, with Tom, but many worlds away. He's probably already forgotten Riddle's presence, and this more than anything, makes him utter, "Good night, Harry."

The name is foreign on his lips, tastes strange on his tongue, but it gets (for once) the desired reaction: Potter's head snaps up, his expression confused, almost dazed. Their eyes meet, and as Tom looks into glazed green the oddest sensation fills his body, tightening his chest and shortening his breath, tickling something instinctual - archaic - in the back of his brain.

Tom's mouth grows dry; those eyes...are _otherworldly_, twin windows into the magnificent - the _impossible -_

_"Tom,"_ someone breathes, though no one in the room has spoken. The voice teases him, birthing brief flashes of color and touch and scent, skirting his conscious like the wisps of a mostly-forgotten memory...

"Goodnight, Tom," Harry returns, the words soft - deafening - in the silence. At his voice, the spell breaks, and Tom recoils, a deep, shuddering breath escaping him as he turns and retreats up the stairs.

Riddle makes sure he's out of sight before pausing to lean on the railing, his dark locks plastered to his forehead.

_What was that?_ he thinks, trembling.

For a moment...for a moment the green eyes of Harry Potter were the world.

Tom remembers the man, Doyle Diggins, how he'd met Potter's gaze and was awed...

_Could he have done that on purpose?_ he wonders, recalling the fear and repulsion that had roared in his mind, the adoration that had filled his heart.

_No_, Tom decides. _No. _

It was clear from Potter's face that he had no idea what he was doing, if he was doing anything at all. Which means...

_Something else is going on, here, _he realizes. _I must be careful._

There's something...not quite right about Harry Potter.

* * *

**_A/N: I had hoped to start getting to the good stuff by now, but alas, it must be next chapter. Thanks to those sticking with me, and I am eternally grateful for all your support!_**

**_Something Important: I feel I should point out that this is, in fact, slash, and while nothing is happening between the two main characters now, it will in the future. Things will also get significantly darker, at least they will in the current direction I'm taking this. So, y'know. Be warned. _**


	6. VI: a most curious monster

_**A/N:**** Finally! This chapter was really difficult for me, guys - the beginning was originally from Harry's POV, but after four failed attempts at starting it, I just decided to go with Tom. He's more interesting to write, anyway. I hope the length (11,000 words!) makes up for it. Enjoy! **_

* * *

_**Chapter 6**_

* * *

_"Curiouser and Curiouser!"_

_ \- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures In Wonderland_

* * *

**°° In Wonderland °°**

_One day, as the boy lies bruised and hungry on his cot in the shifting darkness, a strange fantasy plays against his skin. It takes the form of fingers, long and thin, running gently up his arms, caressing the mottled flesh in a faint, tender manner that the boy finds foreign - and wonderful._

_His heart skips a beat, something odd stirring in his chest as warm breath puffs against the back of his neck, soft lips mouthing a name against the skin there. The boy thinks it might be his; blood roaring, he tries to turn and see, desperation and longing churning in his gut._

_He wants to know, to hear the name that years of darkness and the force of the fat man's fists have washed away. Here, in this prison, he is 'brat,' and 'devil,' and 'freak'; but the boy thinks - knows - he was more, once, and he yearns for the possibility as much as he does the warmth of sunlight, the scent of spring._

_But the fingers grow alarmingly tight when he attempts to roll onto his back. Only years of practice keep him from crying out in pain as sharp nails dig into his already aching limbs._

_"No," a voice breathes in his ear. It seems to be that of a boy's. "Don't move. Stay like this, stay..."_

_The voice sends a chill down his spine, and the strange feeling grows stronger in his chest as he obediently stills. There is a soft sound of approval behind him (his heart leaps - he's never been approved of, before) and now the hands are running gently down his arms, again._

_How strange it is to be touched so softly, without the intent to hurt._

_Who are you? the boy wonders, but dares not speak. The man - the man always hears, always knows, and though the voice at his back has yet to rouse the dreaded footsteps, the boy fears he himself will be heard, anyway._

_"You," the voice answers, as though hearing his thoughts._

_He freezes._

_"You," the voice murmurs again, honeyed silk against his ear. The hands lengthen into arms, long and thin, wrapping around his torso tightly enough that it almost hurts, and now he is being pulled to a warm chest, another's heart thundering against his back._

_"I am you," the voice whispers, "And you are me."_

_One hand presses against the boy's heart, the other raising to a spot above his right eye. He blinks owlishly, catching a glimpse of white flesh and a clean blue sleeve before his body seizes up, his mouth falling open and his back arching as agony - vivid, real - sears through his being._

_A scream claws up his throat, threatening to break free as fire licks at his insides, scalding the flesh of his forehead where the stranger's fingers brush him. There is a sharp intake of breath behind him; the hand falls away, and now the arms are tightening, tightening, like twin serpents around his torso, and the voice is whispering frantically in his ear "harry, harry, harry," but the boy doesn't hear, doesn't know what that is -_

_His eyes squeeze shut, and in the darkness of his mind he sees a flash of blinding green light, hears a woman's dying scream._

_"No!" he wails, and for the first time in years tears escape his eyes, his small chest heaving with great sobs. "No!"_

_"Harry!" the voice hisses, "Be quiet!"_

_The arms feel oddly...faint, around him now, but the boy is too distraught to care. It is only when a familiar bellow reverberates throughout the house that he goes rigid, the sound dying abruptly in his throat._

_"BOY!"_

_He sits up, and now the tears fall from his eyes for a different reason. A whimper escapes his lips as the floor above his head groans under the weight of stomping feet._

_"Harry," the voice is rushed against his neck. He wants to turn and look at him, this other boy, but he can't seem to move. "Harry, listen to me."_

_The stairs are whining now under the fat man's deafening footsteps, and the boy trembles. He knows, from the man's screeching, that the upcoming punishment will be terrible._

_"I'm going to take you away from here," the voice promises. "Not now, not now, but **soon.** I swear to you-"_

_"Little brat!"_

_"- I swear! And he'll pay dearly for hurting you, for all of this - I'll kill him myself!"_

_The rage in those words frightens the boy, almost as much as the approaching beating, and he turns to look -_

**_"He'll pay."_**

_But no one is there. His visitor has vanished, leaving behind naught save that dark promise._

_Perhaps he was never there at all._

_The small door is yanked open, and the precious rays of day flood the cupboard, blinding him._

_"I see you haven't learned your lesson," the man snarls, fat fingers catching his arm in a crushing grip. "We'll just have to re-teach it, then, won't we?"_

_The boy says nothing, water filling his eyes as he is pulled roughly into light - and **pain.**_

* * *

Life at Godric's Hollow is, for Tom, like a dream.

July bleeds smoothly into August, and the memory of his dull life at the orphanage recedes further and further with each day; he has all he could ever ask for, here - shelves and shelves of books, a bright, airy home, enough food to fill his belly, and even a radio, which he listens to often on days when it's rainy or too hot to go outside.

Potter, the fool, is ridiculously doting; he gives Tom everything the boy requests, even the most unnecessary things: Riddle now owns an extensive wardrobe of tailored robes, three huge collections of parchment and quills, a child's potion kit, a Lionel Electric Train Set, and a Velocipede. Tom was particularly delighted by the last two, though he hasn't ridden the Velocipede yet. Potter watched him fawning over the bicycle with something akin to confusion, as though he found the sight bizarre.

Yes, his plan is going fairly well, if the way the older boy treats him is any indication. But sometimes...sometimes Tom isn't sure. Sometimes, when they're sitting together in front of the fireplace, Tom reading and Potter seemingly lost in thought, he will look up and find the other watching him, an odd expression written on his tired features.

Potter always looks tired.

It's not immediately evident, but Tom prides himself on his excellent observation skills; he has noted, with some interest, the curious slump of his guardian's shoulders, how he shies away when the other villagers come to extend their friendship, and, in many cases, something more.

Those guests always make Tom feel distinctly uncomfortable, especially the bolder ones, though he can admit to himself that their (oftentimes) infatuation is understandable. Potter is...exceptionally attractive; with his aquiline nose and red lips, striking green eyes glowing from underneath a melancholic brow and wild black hair, the man exudes mystery and promise - an almost rugged charm - though it seems to be unintentional. Potter, Tom has found, doesn't really like the attention.

He is always polite, always kind when rejecting his admirers - only Tom notices the clipped quality of his words, how his hands wring and his shoulders set and his eyes stay glued to the floor.

The latter, in particular, is jarring; Potter always makes a point of holding Tom's gaze whenever they meet, gray clashing with green in one of their unspoken battles for dominance. He always wins, Tom is ashamed to admit.

_There's just something about those eyes..._

He's gotten mostly used to the strange power they hold, now, though the emerald hues still unbalance him, sometimes. The sense that his guardian is not quite right, however, remains firmly intact.

Tom can't quite pinpoint it, but there is...an air...about Harry Potter, an odd quality in the way he moves and speaks that tells of something - _foreign_, which is really the only word he can equate the feeling to.

Others have noticed it too, that Potter is Different - and not just in the magical sense. Some, upon sensing this, have been even more persistent in their attempts to establish some sort of connection to the man; Doyle Diggins is one such pest.

Honestly, Tom would've hurt him already if he weren't so dedicated to destroying Potter.

Diggins seems to have forced a friendship on his guardian, showing up everyday around lunch time with scones and a ridiculous grin. The scones are always tasteless, Diggins's chatter endless and grating; both he and Potter, if the latter's expression is any indication, have come to dread the sound of the doorbell at noon. But the green-eyed fool refuses to turn the man away.

Tom is consistently baffled during these moments. Potter, however Tom detests him, isn't stupid; though he's certainly no prodigy (like Riddle), the man is surely not so thick as to be oblivious to Diggins's clear infatuation.

It's disgusting and pathetic, really, but Tom, to his frustration, must hold his tongue on the matter. His plans have been going so smoothly, after all, and he'd hate to see his hard work ruined while arguing a point on which Potter clearly refuses to budge.

Really, it's none of his concern; right now, his sole focus is _revenge_.

It consumes his thoughts, a fire lit constantly at the back of his head - an itch so maddening beneath his skin that he hardly bothers considering what he'll do in the aftermath of Potter's death. It's another, perhaps less sound quality of his - the ability to focus wholeheartedly on a task until its completion, to the exclusion of all else.

But he's no_ fool._ He's learned the folly of attacking a full-grown wizard head-on; this time he will make sure he is prepared. He has spent the past few weeks absorbing all the man will teach him about magic, which is a fair amount, though he's been careful about what type of spells he asks to learn.

The fool even lets Tom use his wand - and how _exhilarating_ that was, to close his fingers around the holly and phoenix feather and feel his magic spike and rise, burning hot beneath his skin.

_This is what I was made for_, Tom realized, as water spewed from the tip of the wand, gathering at his will into a shimmery sphere. _This is my calling._

To do magic, any magic, at all times on all days through all years, for there is no greater feeling in the world, no deeper pleasure _(save the heat that wells within his soul at the brush of Potter's skin)._

He was outraged when he found he would not be receiving his own wand - at least, not anytime soon.

_As soon as your letter comes,_ Potter always tells him, but that is far, far too long a time to wait in Tom's eyes. So he practices in secret when he's alone, imagining the pillow his magic tears apart is his guardian's face.

Lately, though, the activity hasn't been much fun.

Potter is just so..._nice._

He takes Tom everywhere: just last week they went to see a film in London, and Tom stared at the moving pictures with patent fascination, laughing uproariously despite himself, along with the rest of the theater, while Potter sat watching him, quietly amused.

The week before that they went fishing down at the lake just outside of the village. Tom didn't much like that activity, as he had trouble figuring out how to work the fishing line, and the depth of the lake made him nervous. Potter, though, looked strangely relaxed, baiting the fish with ease. He examined his prizes curiously with each catch, before releasing them wordlessly back into the water.

"Why are you doing that?" Tom asked, puzzled.

Potter studied him, before calmly countering, "Why would I not?"

"Well, you caught it, didn't you? Isn't that the whole point of this - to catch the slimy things and eat them?"

Potter looked appalled. "Why would I do that? We've got plenty of food at home."

Tom frowned at him, his pleasant facade dropping for a moment.

"So? If you're just going to release them back into the water, then the whole purpose of this trip has been defeated. Why waste our time?"

Potter's lips quirked in the ghost of a smile, adding to the muted melancholy that even now hangs about him, to Tom's endless fascination.

"But that's not true," he murmured. "Fishing, for some, is about the food, but for others it's about the atmosphere, the sense of calm and...peace that the practice provides."

He paused. "At least, that's what I've read. And I can enjoy a period of in-depth reflection without killing a few fish, thank you. It's unnecessary."

"Unnecessary?" Tom echoed, staring at him.

Harry nodded. "Unnecessary."

Then he turned his strange eyes to Riddle, and there was a queer light in them as they roved the other's face.

"You shouldn't hurt another living thing unless it can't be avoided," he said suddenly, leaning close enough that Tom could feel his breath, see the little bits of gold that flecked bright green. Something lurched in his stomach. "Unless you have no other option. Those who kill, who hurt others for the sheer pleasure it gives them...are despicable."

And Tom's throat had closed, his heart hammering in his chest as he looked into emerald and realized the man _knew_ \- knew about Dennis and Amy and all the others he had hurt - knew about Billy Stubbs and his stupid rodent, how it had hung, limp and dead, from the rafters -

Panic parted his mouth and dotted his forehead with beads of sweat. It took all of his self-control to keep the mask in place, not that it mattered, because Potter - Potter -

_How?_

The question boiled at the tip of his tongue molten lava, but to voice it would have been confirmation, something he has no intention - in this world or the next - of giving.

_Despicable._

It was disgusting, the sting that word caused him. Even worse was the part of him wondering frantically if the term was directed at him. Did Potter think him despicable?

_I don't care if he does,_ Tom told himself, his fists clenching. _I don't care what he or anyone else thinks of me._

And he didn't hurt the other children for pleasure, of course not. Their pain was necessary, vital to the consolidation of his own power. Their subjugation was Tom's survival. And was he not superior, anyway? The other orphans were frail, ordinary - was it not the way of things that such creatures be stomped into submission?

Forgetting himself, Tom rasps, "Is that what you think?"

Potter leaned back, green eyes searching his face for something before darting back out to the murky waters of the lake.

"It's what I know," he said softly. His fishing line jerked, and the teen reeled his newest prey from the water, his face relaxed and colored with mild curiosity as he took in the flailing bass attached to the end of the line. Carefully, he lowered it back into the water, watching as its dark shape detached from the bait and sped away.

"But everyone has their despicable moments, Tom," he continued quietly, sitting back.

Tom looked at him, his hands balled into fists. His own fishing line lay abandoned near his thigh.

"Even you?" he asked sharply.

Potter didn't even flinch. Instead he turned his dark head to the sky, his face lit by the sun, and Tom was confused at the flutter that arose in his stomach at the sight as the older male's eyelids closed. His lashes cast little shadows on his cheekbones, but they couldn't hide the deep bruises beneath Potter's eyes. Tom was struck again by just how tired the man looked, as though he hadn't slept in many years.

"Even me," his guardian confirmed.

Tom remembers the sorrow that laced those words, and wonders again at the source. After weeks of replaying that conversation over and over in his mind, he finds himself no more enlightened than he was that day at the lake. And the curiosity is maddening; with each day that passes, the desire to learn more about the one whose house he shares only grows, especially upon realizing just how little he actually knows about the man.

Oh, Tom, through careful observation, has gleaned some things: Potter bites his nails when he's nervous, and frowns when he's really considering something. He combs his fingers through his hair in an absent, useless attempt to tame it whenever he's stressed, and bites his lip when deeply troubled. He likes coffee, the bitter sort, and seems uncomfortable in the trousers and suspenders he buys alongside Tom at a "muggle" shop in London.

Potter is also a very...restless...man. He's fairly good at hiding it, but Tom has noticed, how he paces and fidgets when left with nothing else to do, his eyes darting every few minutes to the windows and the doors. He looks over his shoulder constantly, no matter where they are, and often scans the bustling masses in Diagon Alley with a caution bordering on paranoia.

And Potter and his wand are inseparable; he carries it with him to the washroom, has it tucked into a holster hidden in his robes on their outings, sets it within easy reach during supper, and is generally never parted from it. Tom has only recently joined the wizarding world, but he's fairly certain such behavior is not normal...

It's all very mysterious, and Tom doesn't like mysteries. He's decided to try and solve this one before Potter's death -

"Tom," a familiar voice calls, pulling Riddle abruptly from his thoughts. Potter's head pokes into his room. "Are you ready to go?"

"I am," he mutters, tugging irritably at the short, loose material of his bathing suit. As exposed as he feels standing there in nothing but a poor excuse for trunks, Tom can admit to himself that he is both nervous and unbearably excited in regards to this latest outing -

_Swimming._

He's never been before, unless one counts that cave by the sea. And he was rather occupied, then...

"Alright, then," Potter says, approaching him with a large bag on his shoulder. He is wearing an identical pair of too-short trunks, and looks entirely uncomfortable in them. "Shall we go?"

Tom nods, his eyes darting surreptitiously up to the man's chest, where the pale skin is marred by quite a few old scars. Many of them look to have been deep.

_Curiouser and curiouser..._

Could the man be a war veteran? Tom wonders suddenly, as Potter offers him his hand. He takes it without thought, his mouth twisting as that blasted warmth blooms within his chest again, shortening his breath and weakening his knees.

Potter raises an eyebrow at the red Tom knows is creeping up his neck, but doesn't comment.

"Hold tight," he murmurs, and now they're spinning, the world blurring into nothingness for a brief, weightless second, before rearranging itself into light and heat and the muted whispers of water.

Tom immediately breaks away from his guardian, his heart racing and his stomach churning from familiar nausea. He sways for a moment, steadying himself, before looking out over the lake. The waves gleam welcomingly under the sun, easing the anxiety that tickles the back of his mind, and he starts for the water, his steps quick but careful, sand parting under his toes.. He has just reached the edge when Potter calls,

"Wait, Tom! Don't go in yet."

"What?" he demands, turning impatiently. "Why not?"

Potter sets the bag he's brought with him to the ground and begins taking things out. "Come here."

"Why?"

"It's important."

Tom's eyes narrow. "Can't it wait?"

"I'm afraid not."

He huffs, sparing one last glance at the water before walking over to where Potter has settled on a towel, spreading another one beside him. Patting it, he says,

"Sit."

Tom does, but not happily. He looks up at his guardian, reminding himself that he is supposed to be playing nice. Schooling his face into its pleasant mask, he murmurs,

"What did you want?"

To Tom's confusion, Potter looks more displeased than charmed at the change. Frowning, he intones,

"You need some protection." At Tom's blank look he adds, "From the sun."

The boy blinks owlishly. For once in his life he is honestly confused. "...The sun? Why?"

"Because it burns you," Potter explains, looking at Tom as though he should know this. "Its rays...uh, see there's this thing called ultraviolet...erm, well, they're not good for you, I can tell you that much. With skin like yours, you're especially vulnerable."

"Skin like mine?" Tom frowns at him, his face scrunched up. "What's wrong with my skin?"

"Nothing!" Potter says quickly. "It's just - you're really pale. You could get sunburned very easily, and it's not pleasant. I'd rather that not happen..."

_Why?_ Tom wants to ask, staring. _Why do you care?_

_Why are you doing all of this?_

It is a question that has kept him up some nights, staring at the ceiling while his body lays at ease on his soft, pliant bed. He hungers for the answer and is deathly afraid of it at the same time. After all Tom knows of the world, he finds it hard to imagine someone going to such lengths for an orphan, for someone they don't know.

Not unless they have another goal in mind.

But what? What could Tom Riddle have that Harry Potter could possibly want? Could there be a task of some sort - a purpose only Tom can somehow help with? He rakes his brain for the millionth time, and for the millionth time comes up with nothing.

Riddle is at an unacceptable disadvantage now in that he doesn't know his opponent, doesn't know what Potter intends for him. For once, _he_ is the pawn, the one left in the dark - and he doesn't like it. He doesn't like it at _all._

Deeply unsettled, Tom studies the older boy from under his eyelashes. He says nothing as Potter raises his wand and mutters one of his spells, though he can't repress the shudder that runs through his body as a cool wave of magic washes over him.

"What was that?" he demands, when the sensation recedes.

"Protection," Potter says simply. He pats Tom's arm, seemingly unaffected by the spikes of heat that strike Tom's insides at the other's touch.

"I hope you don't expect a 'thank you,'" Tom snaps, pulling away. His cheeks are growing hot again, and he's not sure why.

Potter lips quirk in that ghost-smile.

"Of course not," he murmurs, looking pleased again to Tom's confusion. "Go on, be careful. I'll join you in a minute."

Huffing again, Riddle turns his back on the other male and resumes his venture to the lake's edge. It's so hot, he imagines his skin could be burned, but the water is cool...

Breathing deeply, Tom takes a tentative step forward. And then another, and another, until his ankles are submerged. His heart is racing, and silently he berates himself. It's just water. Not even deep. So long as he stays near the shore...

Swallowing, Tom walks further, until his knees are submerged. Then he sits, wincing slightly as the water kisses his chest and arms.

He stays like this for a long time, kicking his legs lazily, his gray eyes glued to the other side of the lake, where the fish dwell and the water is impossibly deep.

"You alright, there?" a voice at his back inquires. Tom jumps, his head snapping to the speaker. Potter is standing entirely too close behind him, peering down at him curiously.

"I'm fine," Tom snaps, a scowl twisting his face when the other male seats himself in the water beside him, wincing slightly. "What do you want?"

"Not feeling up to acting pleasant today, are you?" Potter observes, instead of answering. The boy stiffens.

"What are you-"

"Are you afraid of the water or something?" the man interrupts. "I've never seen you so hesitant before."

Tom's fists clench.

_The plan_, he reminds himself, but his irritation is spiking the longer Potter looks at him, and he's always had trouble containing his own emotions, once they reach a certain level.

"I'm not _afraid,"_ he sneers, his eyes hard. "I just don't feel like swimming, right now."

"I can see that," Potter comments. He reaches up, tugging lightly on one of Tom's curls, and Tom is too shocked at his audacity to protest.

"Completely dry," he murmurs. The hand moves down to his neck. Riddle grits his teeth, struggling to hide the effect the man's touch has on him, though it is immensely difficult to ignore the hot thrills crawling down his spine. Seemingly oblivious, Potter continues, "You seemed so excited to come here, Tom. Are you really going to just sit there?"

"Move your hand," the boy growls, instead of answering.

"And if I don't?" Potter retorts, tilting his head. There is an odd gleam in his eye, and were Tom not so irritated, he might've paid closer attention to how the other's fingers shift on his skin.

Instead, he bristles.

"Then I'll-"

The words die on his tongue as his head is forced underwater.

Tom screams in surprise, his mind struggling to comprehend what's just happened as great gulps of salt water fill his mouth and nose. It burns his throat and nostrils, and he tries to sit up, but the hand on the back of his neck is a steel vice, holding him down, _drowning_ him. Above, someone is laughing; Tom thrashes about wildly, panic and shock boiling in his veins, clutching his heart - he can't breathe - _he can't breathe_ -

The hand falls away. Tom shoots up, leaving the sluggish world underwater for the sun and sweet, sweet oxygen. He scrambles to his feet, coughing madly, his knees weak and his heart racing. Adrenaline pumps throughout him, making his head light and his muscles stiff. The rage grounds him, though, and his eyes zero in on Potter, the loathsome cockroach, swimming away and laughing loudly.

He has just tried to kill Tom, and the git is laughing!

_"You bloody wanker!"_ Riddle screams after him, and the laughter dies.

Potter pauses in his retreat, turning back to look at Tom with wide eyes. Green hues are searching his crimson face with confusion and dawning apprehension.

"Tom?" he calls uncertainly.

Riddle sneers at the puzzlement in the other's tone.

"You just tried to kill me!" he spits, stalking forward. Tom can't reach Potter - the water's too deep where he's fled to, the coward - but he can't stay out there forever...

Tom allows his magic to rise, chilling the air, and Potter does a double take.

"What?" He shoots Tom an incredulous look. _"What?"_

"Don't play innocent, you_ tosser,"_ Riddle growls. "You held my head underwater. You were going to drown me!"

Potter looks at him, his mouth open and his brow furrowed, as though Tom is the stupidest creature to have ever lived.

"You can't be serious," he says.

Tom flushes angrily. "Well, what else do you call what you did just now?"

"Oh, for the love of - I was _dunking_ you! It's a common game when swimming!"

"Ah," Tom hisses. "Excuse me, then. I didn't realize _attempted murder_ was considered a _pastime_."

"_Attempted-?_ You're being ridiculous!" Potter exclaims, scowling. "Why would I want to kill you?"

He wades closer. "Why in Merlin's name would I go through all the trouble of the last month or so, just to drown you in the lake? What sense does that make?"

"Well, you're not very bright," Tom snaps, by way of explanation. He crosses his arms, annoyed, because Potter has a good point. But he refuses to believe that forcefully holding another person's head underwater is considered a _game_.

"I could say the same about you," Potter retorts, ignoring the frost of Tom's magic as he closes the distance between them. "Honestly, I don't know what I was thinking. I should've known you'd throw a tantrum..."

He stops just before the boy, looking regretful and frustrated. The expression sends a curious discomfort through Tom, who remembers suddenly how the man had looked just a few minutes ago, at ease as he tugged almost playfully on Tom's hair. No one has ever touched him so casually before - except that woman, and the reminder of her makes his mouth twist involuntarily, his hands ball into fists.

"I'm sorry," Potter says softly, startling him. "I...it was wrong of me to do that to you without proper warning. I apologize."

Tom says nothing. The harsh lines of his face soften a little, however, and his hands unclench. Silence hangs between them, tense but not quite hostile, anymore, and then Potter continues, "Do...do you want to go home?"

Tom thinks about it. Something devious - petty - unfolds in his head as he looks into green, and it is hard to repress a smirk as he answers, "No. I think we should stay...but only if you do something for me."

"What?" Potter asks, his eyes narrowing.

The boy lifts his chin. "Sit."

"Wha-?"

"Sit," Tom repeats, and his tone brooks no argument.

Potter stands there for a long moment, anyway, watching him suspiciously, before slowly lowering himself into the water. On his bottom, the water rises up to his stomach, and Tom pauses, wondering if he'll regret this sudden boldness.

"Well?" Potter prompts, looking up at him, and Tom finds he is pleased at the sight - to be towering over his guardian for once...

"Close your eyes," he orders.

They narrow further instead, green slits peering warily from under unkempt jet-black hair.

"Why?"

"Just do it."

Potter studies him, emeralds roving his face with strange intensity. Then he closes his eyes.

Tom, his earlier anger melting away to a strange giddiness, places his hands on the other male's shoulders. Warmth, fierce and intoxicating, rushes through him, and he is surprised to see Potter's brow furrow, as though he feels it, too.

"Tom..."

"Just relax," he murmurs, wondering privately if he's strong enough to do this, what Potter will say if he succeeds. "Relax..."

Potter does, reluctantly, and Tom waits patiently until the other's shoulders loosen under his hands before summoning all his strength (with some magical aid, of course), and _pushing_. He hears Potter's gasp as he falls backwards, the sound dying when his head is submerged. Tom goes with him, knees on either side of the man's waist as he presses down on his shoulders.

He can see Potter gasping, struggling for air, and for a brief moment the ugly thing rises in his chest, whispering to Tom for the first time in weeks. It tells him to stay like this, to force Potter's shoulders down until the bubbles stop coming. His death would be a little earlier than planned, yes, but it would also be _infinitely_ satisfying. He should just get it out of the way, now...

_Too soon,_ Tom tells it, releasing the man's shoulders. _Not yet._

Potter shoots up, causing Tom to rear back as the green-eyed male sucks in large, greedy gasps of air. Riddle moves off his lap, getting to his feet and watching warily while the other quickly regains himself.

Now he finds himself staring into sunlit emeralds, and Tom tenses, privately preparing to be scolded and punished. Potter continues to look at him, however, silent. And then, just as the tension threatens to gnaw at his sanity, Potter grins.

It breaks across his face like the sun through an overcast sky, vibrant and breath-taking and _real_; Tom's heart leaps into his throat as he witnesses it, this captivating transformation, the weariness that typically clouds his guardian's visage falling away like dust to reveal youth and something beyond simple attractiveness or charm.

Harry's eyes - his eyes are glowing, crinkling at the corners as he beams up at Tom like a fool, and when Tom looks into them his soul quivers with something he does not understand. It feels...it feels like the rush of adoration he felt in the kitchen on his first night in Godric's Hollow, when he met the man's gaze, then, but - but -

The fire that constricts his chest now is a thousand times that moment in strength, searing his insides and fraying his soul, his thoughts, his _mind_ -

Because Harry Potter is more than handsome.

He is _beautiful_, so beautiful, grinning up at Tom with his dark hair sticking up oddly and droplets of water clinging to his eyelashes...

Tom Riddle stares at him, and **_covets._**

"You got me," Harry is saying. He shakes his head, beaming still. "I really should've expected that."

"...You were right," Tom manages, his voice thick. "Holding you underwater...was highly enjoyable. I think I shall make a habit of it."

The words earn him a pause, and then a chuckle. It is a low, rich sound, as enthralling as Potter's grin, and as the air warms between them Tom wonders what Harry's laughter sounds like - if it is as powerful as his smile.

He heard it before, as he rose from the water, but he'd been too angry then to really process the sound...

His mouth open, Tom leans closer. His chest is so tight that it's hard to breathe, and that _fire_ is still scalding his soul, wild and ravenous - like the ugly thing, only, where the latter craves suffering, the former burns away all else within him, leaving nothing but fathomless yearning...

He_ wants..._

"Tom?" Harry's voice cuts into the sluggish nature of his thoughts. "Tom, are you alright?"

"I'm - I'm fine," he rasps, stepping back.

"Are you sure?"

Studying him intently, Potter glides towards Tom. He takes the boy's hand, his smile dimming to a shadow of its earlier magnificence, and murmurs,

"C'mon, let's go swim."

Tom is so drunk off the contact of their joined hands that he doesn't immediately register Potter's words, and it is only when the man begins to pull him further out into the lake that he halts, his face losing the little color it has.

"I - no," he mumbles, shaking his head. Potter shoots him a puzzled look.

"Tom?"

"I...I can't swim," Tom confesses, his face hardening. His head is clearing, now, and all he wants to do is run - run far away from Harry Potter. The fire still burns within him, antagonized by the pulsing warmth emitting from their joined flesh, and it makes everything sharper - _brighter_ -

But his mind is muddled and scattered, his thoughts lagging at a pace far too slow for the normally sharp-minded Tom. It's hard to think, hard to _breathe_. This can't be normal, or natural...

_A spell? _

_No_, he assures himself. _Potter wouldn't._

Would he?

Tom remembers how Potter looked when he asked him about Diggins, if he had anything to do with the man's sudden fixation. The man's expression was appalled and affronted, as though he was never so offended in his life, and however much Tom...dislikes Potter, he can't imagine him casting such a spell.

But surely he is not alone in this. Surely Potter feels this too.

And when he looks, he sees it; the barest tightening of his guardian's jaw, the shallow, rapid rise and fall of his chest.

_So I'm not the only one affected_, Tom concludes, storing the thought away for further analysis. _Potter's just better at hiding it._

The knowledge ruffles him; if there is anyone good at hiding their emotions, it's Riddle. He's a master. Only, his mind is a little clouded, now...

Potter's brows disappear into his hair.

"Is that so?" he says softly, his fingers tightening around Tom's. He frowns, deep in thought. "How about I teach you, then?"

"What?" Tom blurts. "Why?"

"Well, you're nearly eleven years old. Don't you think swimming is a valuable skill to know?"

Tom scoffs, but doesn't step away. "There are far more important things."

"Like what?" Potter asks him, gliding backwards.

"Well," Tom begins, moving with him. "Skill in words is essential, isn't it? And one must be adept in the art of fear. If they want to be powerful, at least."

He immediately wants to strike himself the moment the words leave his mouth. Sure enough, Potter's gaze sharpens.

"Hm," he says, taking Tom's other hand. They're moving out now into deeper waters, and the boy swallows thickly, his knuckles turning white as his grip on the older male tightens. "An interesting viewpoint. But fear, while effective, tends to blow up in the oppressor's face, as history has proven..."

"And?" he argues, despite himself. "Those who have ruled through fear in the past let their own power consume them. They became needlessly cruel and sloppy. If one was to come along who could subjugate his people without letting his reign go to his head..."

"It wouldn't end well for them, anyway," Potter insists, frowning. He pulls the boy closer, and Tom does not resist, too frightened by the disappearance of the ground beneath his feet. "Humans don't like to be subjugated, Tom."

"Yet history has proven time and time again that it is the most effective system," Tom mutters, his face white. "Take me back to the shore."

"Why?" Potter asks. "We haven't even begun your lessons."

"I don't care," Tom snaps, scowling. There's nothing under his feet, nothing to stop the water from swallowing him whole and crushing the breath from his lungs. A shudder racks him at the knowledge. "Take me back."

"There's nothing to be afraid of," Potter assures him, instead. "Just kick your feet."

Grudgingly, Tom does. He kicks and kicks, but the action does little more than unnerve him further as he realizes just how deep they've gone. His toes brush nothing, no matter how far he stretches his legs, and Tom unconsciously draws closer to his guardian, his eyes huge.

Should Potter let go of him now, he would drown.

"Too deep," he whispers, tearing one hand away from Potter's so that he can clutch at the man's shoulder, instead. His left hand quickly follows suit. "We're going too deep."

It's embarrassing, clinging to Potter like a frightened child, but Tom fears the water more than he loathes the other male, and so he allows his mask to fall for a moment, his gaze glued to the placid surface of the lake.

In his peripheral vision, he notes Potter is staring unabashedly at him, looking curiously awed.

"You're scared," he murmurs, his green eyes round in his face.

"I told you I can't swim," Tom growls, glaring at him.

Potter's brow furrows. "There's nothing to be afraid of, Tom. You won't drown; I wouldn't let that happen."

He wraps his arms around Tom's waist as if to prove his point, ignoring how the boy stiffens. Quietly, he promises,

"I've got you."

Tom stares at him. His breath doesn't catch at the words. His heart doesn't resume its frenzied gallop in his chest, and the fire from earlier does not reignite, burning through him from his head to his toes.

He is not affected at all by the promise, or the silent message behind it. He does not care - he will not care -

And if Tom falls silent, his face not quite so pale anymore, it isn't because he is _assured_ by Potter's words, of course not. He is simply lost in thought. Potter appears to be pondering something as well, and for a long time they simply float, carried along in languid circles by the water and Potter's lazily kicking feet.

It's...tolerable. Strange, to be so close to another, but tolerable. Tom's eyes rest on Potter's for a while, before drifting down to the shimmering surface of the lake. The constant undulating of the water hypnotizes him, and before he really knows what he's doing, his arms are wrapping around Potter's neck. The man tenses, only to relax just as quickly.

"This isn't so bad, is it?" Potter whispers against his hair. Tom doesn't answer at first, his head drooping to the warm crook between his guardian's shoulder and neck. The sun is hot on his back, but it is no match for the heat bubbling within him, as Potter's heart beats strong and steadily against his own.

_It's a shame I'll have to stop it soon_, Tom thinks distantly, his eyes closing.

"Even worse than I imagined," he mumbles in answer, his voice thick and low with half-consciousness.

Potter laughs quietly again, and the sound follows Tom into sleep.

* * *

Things change after that.

Potter does not look quite so guarded around him, anymore, and the ugly thing does not roar as loudly as it used to whenever Tom looks at him.

The air between them is...almost comfortable, now, and it unsettles him, how easy it is to forget that Potter is his target - that Tom is supposed to kill him, soon. He still means to do so, of course - just...

Perhaps he should wait. Find out more about the one who's taken him in before killing him. It's only wise...

After all, Potter could have friends or family that will miss him when he's gone, and Riddle would rather get away as cleanly as possible...

But after more than a week of careful probing, Tom doesn't think this is the case. Potter never mentions any relationships or familial ties; in fact, he is curiously tight-lipped about the subject, and will lash out when pressed, as Tom has learned.

A few days ago, he was a little too persistent in his questioning at dinner. Potter grew more and more tense with each inquiry, finally throwing down his fork and storming out of the kitchen upon being asked if he ever had a sweetheart.

Tom was left startled; Potter has never come across as the type to flee, or suffer emotional outbursts. It only reinforces his belief that something dark lives in the older male's past; if only Tom knew _what._

The answer makes itself known on the 11th of August.

Tom awakes from another strangely vivid nightmare, this one involving a tall, hooded figure whispering to him in a voice like stained velvet. He lays in bed for a while, clutching his soft sheets in an attempt to calm his shaking hands and racing heart; despite his efforts, it takes him almost an hour to fully recover.

Every time he thinks he's calmed down, he remembers the figure - how it loomed over him, radiating menace and power, speaking fervently of a device - **_surely you must have it, child, you must know where it is, tell me, tell me, I will find you -_**

_I don't know,_ Tom told it, shrinking away. He was afraid, terrified of this creature, how it reeked of the incomprehensible - _the impossible_ \- and he thought of running away, but something told him that would be unwise. And where would he go?

There was nothing in sight but fog, so much fog, as far as the eye could see. And the doors.

They were numberless, stretching orderly and identical in rows as unending as the fog. Tom was even more frightened of them than he was the figure, and did his best to avoid even looking at them. Every time his eyes swept over one, some raw instinct swelled in the back of his mind, whispering urgently that he_ stay away,_ that he not venture too close, lest something unspeakable happen.

The same instinct lingers now in the back of his head, and with a shuddering breath Tom sits up.

_Just a dream_, he tells himself, ignoring the sense of foreboding that twists his gut. The light streaming cheerfully into his room helps to calm him, and he smoothes down his dark hair with a grimace, firmly pushing the nightmare from his head.

He glances at the clock on his bedside table as he stands, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. It reads eleven-thirty. Tom frowns.

They've begun a routine, he and Potter, one that consists of the man coming to rouse him for breakfast at eight o'clock, after which they'll go swimming, or, depending on Tom's mood, out to London. Recently, Potter has talked about taking him to Hogsmeade, a prospect Tom is hugely excited about, since he'll get to glimpse Hogwarts, too.

Perhaps they can go today.

_But where is he?_ Tom wonders, donning his clothes for the day. It's possible Potter slept in, but so far the man has shown an almost obsessive dedication to rising early and making Tom breakfast. Not to mention Tom's growing suspicion that Harry Potter hardly sleeps at all - how else can one explain the circles that live under his guardian's eyes?

_Maybe he has nightmares, too,_ Tom thinks, leaving his room. As he suspected, the house is deathly silent, and the smell of breakfast does not deign to grace his nostrils...

Frowning, he looks down the hallway, at the door to Potter's room. Could the man really have slept in? He decides to investigate.

Quietly, Tom moves down the hall, his eyes narrowed and his stomach grumbling. Potter's door is closed; he hears nothing inside._Well,_ Tom thinks, reaching for the doorknob. _He's __just going to have to get up..._

He opens the door slowly, wincing slightly at the low whine that pierces the silence, only to stop short. Potter is not asleep, as Tom thought; he is instead sitting curled in the window seat directly opposite the boy, his forehead pressed to the glass as he stares unseeingly outside.

Tom opens his mouth to announce his presence, only to pause upon really looking at Potter. The man's appearance leaves much to be desired; he is wearing the same clothes from yesterday, rather than pajamas, and they hang rumpled from his thin frame, as untidy as his hair. His eyes are even dimmer than usual, and shadows haunt his face. He looks...lost.

Tom clutches the doorknob, silent. He understands immediately that something is wrong, and that he should probably leave Potter alone. The man is clearly in another world, right now - especially if he didn't hear Tom enter.

He moves back, intent on retreating, when his eyes are suddenly dragged downwards, to Potter's lap. Tom pauses. Potter is clutching something in his right hand, a gold chain spilling from his fist, and something about the sight makes Tom's insides quiver unpleasantly.

The longer he stares at the chain - at Potter's closed fist - the more the feeling grows, until the sense of foreboding is back in full force, eating at his thoughts, along with that figure's silken voice, promising dark things...

_**I will find you.**_

Tom releases a ragged breath, and Potter hears.

The man starts as if struck, his head whipping around to Tom, who straightens as the other's green eyes brighten at the sight of him with an emotion that is not _quite_ anger, but close.

"Tom," he acknowledges quietly, his face utterly blank. Tom stares at him and realizes that he is looking at a mask not unlike the one he wears daily. "Was there something you wanted?"

"I..."

Tom pauses, unbalanced. For once, he doesn't know what to say. His presence is clearly not wanted, right now, and the knowledge annoys him for reasons he doesn't want to examine too closely.

His eyes darting to Potter's hand, again, he ignores the chill running down his spine and considers asking about breakfast. _Or_, he reconsiders, looking up into haunted eyes. _M__aybe he'd appreciate it more if I just left. _

Not that Tom is all that concerned about Potter's appreciation, no. But it is difficult to ignore what's sitting in front of him: a hardened, tired man. And while Potter looks like this most of the time, it is especially pronounced today. It's...sad. Tom looks into his desolate eyes and murmurs,

"You're in pain."

Potter blanches, looking away. "I'm fine."

"No," Tom insists, studying the other through narrowed eyes. "Something's wrong. You were acting strangely yesterday, too, now that I think about it - you hardly spoke..."

"Do you honestly care?" Potter snaps, startling Tom into silence. He is pressing himself against the window, his shoulders hunched, staring at the boy like a cornered lion. There is anger and bitterness in those green eyes as they look at him - as though _he_ were the source of everything wrong in the world...

Tom, ignoring how his chest tightens uncomfortably at the look, lifts his chin. He is _offended, surprised - _ not hurt. He doesn't know the source of Potter's sudden ire toward him, and, if that's how the man feels about his concern (which Tom _doesn't_ give lightly), then he doesn't _care_.

"No," he says coolly, turning to leave.

"Tom," Potter calls half-heartedly. Making a rather disparaging sound in his throat, Tom ignores the older male, shutting the door loudly behind him.

"To hell with him," he grumbles sourly, passing his room and descending the stairs. Potter clearly wants nothing to do with him, today. Tom will oblige him.

He is furious, however, to find his heart speeding up at the knowledge.

_Maybe he's realized,_ Tom thinks, crossing the living room in his journey to the foyer. _Maybe he knows that I'm not...not normal. Not even by Wizarding standards._

It's a very real possibility, one that makes Tom's palms sweat profusely as he raises them to the handles of his Velocipede, which is stationed unobtrusively near the front door. He opens the door and wheels the bicycle out, one hand patting the seat of it almost lovingly.

He's always wanted a bike.

And the desire is a perfectly normal one. Plenty of children his age dream of riding their very own Velocipede. What sets Tom apart is his fantasy of running over Billy Stubbs's - or better yet, _Mrs. Cole's_ \- face with the contraption. Repeatedly.

He has learned to curb his violent urges, or at least hide them very well, but sometimes...sometimes he slips up. Sometimes, very rarely, people see behind the mask. The woman was the worst of these offenders, for she saw - and Tom _told_ \- of the even worse thing within him, lying deep beneath the violence -

And she had looked at him, stark white and terrified, as though he were a _monster_ -

Tom grits his teeth, forcing his breathing to even out.

That woman - that blubbering, foreign _cow_ \- means absolutely nothing to him. She is - was - not worth the dirt on his boots. He really shouldn't allow her the honor of gracing his thoughts.

Nodding to himself, he smoothes the scowl from his otherwise angelic face and sets about rolling the bike down to the dirt path near the woods. It also leads to the lake, not that Tom intends to go that far. The last time he ventured past a certain specified point, Potter had appeared, reprimanding him about the dangers of going out unsupervised.

The memory brings a fresh scowl to his face, and he considers going down to the lake, anyway, but Tom would really rather not have to look at Potter, right now...

So he instead concerns himself with mounting his bicycle.

Tom has no past experience with the contraptions; this is actually his first serious attempt to ride the thing, what with how often he and Potter have their outings. To his dismay, the thing keeps tipping over whenever he tries to ride it, and after several failed attempts, Tom dismounts.

Scratching absently at his chin, he studies the Velocipede. He's read before that riding one is a difficult skill to learn. If Tom remembers correctly, the key to remaining upright is _balance_.

_Easy enough. _

He _is_ a genius, after all.

* * *

Twelve tries, ten curses, and two skinned knees later, Tom learns that it's not quite that simple. No matter what he does, he simply cannot stay _upright. _His elbows ache and his cheek is bruised from a particularly nasty fall, but he is too annoyed at the impossibility of such a seemingly simple task to care.

The sun beats down mercilessly overhead, mocking him each time he fails. Sweat and dirt cling to his once-immaculate clothes, doing very little to improve his already considerably foul mood. It is hot and he is dirty and he needs a Band-Aid (a couple, actually), but he can't go inside, not yet. Such an action would mean _defeat._

_Unacceptable._

Gritting his teeth, he picks himself again for the thirteenth try. He heard once that thirteen was an unlucky number, but Tom likes to think he's beyond luck, and with a heavy breath he hoists the Velocipede back up into a standing position

_Success, this time,_ he tells himself, hopping onto the seat. _I will not be bested by a bicycle..._

Staring determinedly ahead, Tom takes a deep breath and focuses on balancing himself. He places one foot on the pedal. His fingers tighten on the handlebars, and then his foot is pressing down, and he's moving forward. Excitement wells within him as the opposite pedal comes up, and he presses down on it with his other foot.

And he's doing it - he's riding the bike, it's _obeying_ _him_ -

Tom's excitement is abruptly drenched as the bike wobbles, following his unbalanced body as his torso leans dangerously to the right.

_No_, he thinks desperately, as he loses control. _Damn it, no, I had it, **I had it** -_

Then the ground rises up to meet him, and Tom squeezes his eyes shut, expecting pain - but none comes. Instead the bike halts in its fall. The boy sighs in relief, assuming his magic has intervened, until a warm hand settles on his back, sending familiar chills throughout his body.

Tom's mouth twists. He didn't even hear the man's approach.

"Potter," he says cordially, though inside he is sneering. "Thank you. Was there something you wanted?"

The hand on his back tenses, and Tom cracks an eye open in time to see discomfort ripple across Potter's (absurdly close) face at the echo of his earlier words.

"I'm sorry," he mumbles, steadying the bike with his other hand. "That was...unfair of me, to act that way towards you."

Tom just stares at him. The apology is decent in the way of appeasement, but he wants an explanation as well - something Potter clearly doesn't intend to give. It's also rather apparent from the way the man's looking at him that he hopes Tom won't press. Tom does anyway, of course.

"Why _did_ you act like that?" he asks, as Potter sighs. "What's wrong with you?"

He gets off the Velocipede, batting the older male's hand away none too gently. Potter blinks owlishly at him, opening his mouth, but then his eyes zero in on Tom's cheek, and he stills.

"You're hurt," he says softly, frowning down at the boy in a way that makes Tom's mouth dry. He tenses as Potter touches his face, thumb running carefully over the darkening skin on his cheek. There is too much familiarity in that touch, and Tom slaps his hand away with a scowl.

"I'm fine," he grumbles, ignoring Potter's wide-eyed stare. "Leave me alone."

He steps back, crossing his arms, only to immediately regret the action when green eyes dart down to his legs.

_"Tom,"_ Potter hisses, taking out his wand. Tom makes an indignant sound as Potter advances, grabbing his arm and kneeling in the dirt to better examine his knees.

"I'm _fine_," Tom insists, staring at the top of the man's dark head with a mixture of confusion and annoyance. He tries to pull away, but Potter's fingers tighten warningly around his bicep. Glaring down at him, Tom growls, "They're only scrapes."

"You should be more careful," Potter says, shooting Tom his own impressive glower while he raises his wand. His eyes have reverted to that curious darkness as they take in the blood drying on his abused knees. He mutters what Tom assumes is a healing spell, and the boy watches, fascinated, as the skin knits back together, the sting vanishing.

"C'mon," Potter murmurs, standing. He starts to pull Tom back towards the house.

"No," Tom says, refusing to move. He glances at the bicycle. "I don't want to go inside."

Potter follows his gaze, frowning. "There'll be plenty of time for you to learn how to ride the bike later, Tom. I'll even help you, if you want. But I need to clean you up first. Come on."

He's using that tone again, the one that brooks no argument, and Tom sullenly allows himself to be pulled towards the house, muttering curses all the while.

* * *

"Are we going somewhere?" Tom asks, studying Potter with veiled interest as the man wipes the blood from his knee.

"Hm?" Potter says absently.

"You're wearing a suit," Tom points out. "'Muggle clothes, as you call them. Are we going to London?"

Potter hesitates, busying himself with the dirty rag in a transparent avoidance of Tom's eyes.

"_I_ am," he says lightly. "I...I need to pick up some things."

Tom's gaze sharpens, and he studies Potter intently as the older male sets about cleaning his other knee.

"Like what?"

"Just - things. Nothing important-"

"So then I can go with you."

Green eyes dart up to his, startled and forlorn.

"No," Potter says softly, quickly looking away. "No, you can't."

"Why not?" Tom demands. Potter's behavior is deeply confusing to him, and annoyance furrows his brow. Clearly, there's something going on here, some tidbit of information that he isn't aware of...

"I'll be back within the hour," Potter says tightly.

"All the more reason I should go-"

"I said_ 'no,'"_ Potter snaps. His jaw clenches. "Just...I'll be back in an hour, Tom."

Tom glowers at him, silent. They have a brief staring match, and it is Potter who loses this time. Running his free hand through wild black hair, he steps back.

"There," he says, tossing the rag into the sink. "You're all cleaned up, now. I trust you'll change your clothes."

Tom hops off the counter, ignoring the older male as he exits the washroom.

"Tom."

He doesn't turn, or even stop.

_"Tom."_

_"What?"_

Potter stares at him, looking lost, again. Something ripples across his face, but it's gone before he can properly decipher it.

"You," he pauses, biting his lip. "...You know I wouldn't leave you, right?"

Tom glares at him. "I wouldn't care if you did."

"But you know that I wouldn't, right?" Potter presses, stepping forward. "I'll be back within the hour. I just - I need to get something. And I need to be alone when I do it. Okay?"

"Of course," the boy says coldly. He walks away. There is a sigh behind him.

"Don't go past the wards."

A loud 'pop' whips the air. And then Tom is alone.

* * *

Peter Periwinkle looks up at the sound of a bell penetrating the silence of his workplace, announcing a potential client. His pale eyes widen a little.

A young man, hardly out of boyhood, stands uncertainly near the doorway, peering hopefully at him with magnificent green eyes. Peter pauses under the weight of them, his mouth going dry. Blinking owlishly, he says,

"Why, hello. You must...be Harry Potter."

The boy nods, his black hair shifting to reveal, albeit briefly, a most curious scar.

"I am," the boy says softly. Walking closer, he extends his hand and says, "It's a pleasure to meet you in person, Mr. Periwinkle. I've heard only great things."

"I'd hope so, my boy, I'd hope so," Peter laughs. It is not as real as it could be. Up close, the boy's eyes are terribly distracting, soft and gleaming with the_ impossible - _

"Is...is it finished?" The boy, Harry, asks, pulling Peter from his thoughts. Though his client inquires casually enough, the old painter does not miss how his hands tremble, ever faintly, at his sides, and with a soft smile he answers,

"Yes - yes, it is. I just added the finishing touches! You'd like it now, yes?"

The boy's eyes shine. "I would," he breathes, looking away from Peter to the assortment of paintings arranged behind him. Wondering privately at the sudden confusion of his thoughts, Peter nods and moves to the short counter at his left, next to his Pensieve, where a small frame sits in clear wrapping. A vial filled with a clear, wispy substance lies beside it.

Peter retrieves them both, his grip careful as he moves and presents them to his client, who tucks the vial away, staring down at the mini portrait with a clenched jaw.

Peter pauses. The boy's shoulders are hunched, his head bowed as he gazes at the painter's work. Periwinkle frowns a little.

"Is it...not to your liking?" He's quite proud of it, himself.

But the frown melts as Mr. Potter looks up. There are tears in his eyes.

"It's perfect," he says faintly. Shaking fingers brush lovingly across the waving figure in the painting. "She's perfect."

* * *

Tom is picking up his bike, trying to decide how best to stay on it, this time, when he hears it - a soft, sibilant whisper that should not exist outside his nightmares:

**_"Tom."_**

He drops the bike.

"Who's there?" Tom asks sharply, sweat building on his brow as he scans his surroundings. There is no one in sight, nothing out of the ordinary, but cold fingers rake down his spine as he looks down the dirt path to his right, where the trees of the wood sway restless and beckoning.

_It was nothing,_ he tells himself, even as something in the back of his head whispers otherwise. _Just my imagination...just a nightmare..._

He steps back, only slightly comforted, his eyes glued to the trees. The sense of foreboding from earlier is so strong within him, now, that it makes his breath catch. Swallowing audibly, Tom scans the forest one last time, his ears straining for the slightest sound. Though he hears nothing, sees nothing, the knot in his chest does not unwind. He turns away, toward the house.

_**"Tom."**_

The voice is stained velvet and torn silk and_** very real,**_ reverberating in his head like a scream in the bowels of a cavern. Tom freezes, his blood hardening to ice in his veins.

_No_, says his rational side. _No, impossible, not possible, it can't be -_

**_"Come."_**

And to Tom's utter horror, his body turns.

Suddenly he is looking not at the house - but at the woods, though he's sure he didn't tell himself to about-face. And now his feet are moving, though he gave them no such order-

_No_, Tom thinks, panic and disbelief warring within him with each step. The woods are getting closer, and the same raw instinct from before is swelling in his head, urging his heart into a frenzied gallop that makes it nigh impossible to think clearly.

_Don't go, don't go,_ the instinct shrieks, adding to the panic. _No, stop, don't go into the woods, **he's** there, **he's found you -**_

But no matter how he struggles, his body will not obey; it is as though his limbs have been attached to invisible strings, marching him forcibly towards the puppeteer. His eyes huge, Tom tries to summon his magic, to break free as he did Potter's body-binding spell, but his mounting consternation makes it hard to concentrate, and cold waves of magic roll uselessly off his person.

**_"Come,"_** the voice whispers again, and Tom can do nothing but watch, helpless and infuriated, as his feet move faster, as though desperate to reach the speaker.

_What's happening?_ he wonders frantically, as the trees close around him. _What spell is this? Release me now!_

An amusement not his own ripples through him, icy and foreign, and the color drains from Tom's skin. He closes his eyes, the only part of him still under his control, but his legs keep moving, and now he feels it: a second presence coiled within him, crooning softly,

**_"Little one, little one, come to me, come, come. There is...so very much to learn." _**

_No_, he thinks desperately. _Potter. _

He said he would be back within the hour, and it's already been at least thirty minutes, maybe-

There is another twinge of amusement, laced with a much darker emotion that Tom cam only describe as hatred...mixed with an almost..._hunger. _

_**The Boy Who Lived,** _the creature murmurs. _**Seductive, is he not? Alas, he will not reach you in time, little one. This is...between you, and me. **  
_

Tom's throat closes, his pale eyes the only clue to the sudden terror that possesses him at the words. Even more horrifying is the _presence_, the source of the words, because it's coming from _within_ him, not outside, as he first thought.

And now the presence is expanding, seeping into his head, clouding his thoughts and muddying his mind like a drug. It feels similar to that day at the lake, when he grew drunk off the combined power of Potter's touch and smile - only much, much more sinister.

Now his body is relaxing, his eyes hooding despite himself. A smile quirks Tom's lips as calm washes over him. There is nothing to panic about, nothing to fear. He is going to meet a very special friend, after all. If anything, he should be excited! Beaming brilliantly, the child continues to walk. Ignoring the faint voice screaming in the back of his mind, Tom tilts his face to the sun, enjoying its rays. Such a beautiful day. It stirs up recollections of long-forgotten things...

Tom whistles a low, lilting tune _(though he doesn't know how to whistle),_ his mind filled with the ancient memory of a scrawny, green-eyed boy, clumsy hands, and the softness of that boy's lips on his.

Beneath his feet, the grass freezes, and the woodland creatures flee. Above, birds abandon their nests, screaming shrilly in their flight. He ignores it all, uncaring, a deep calm pervading his being as the trees part and the dirt path widens into sand.

The lake moves restlessly under the sun, as though affronted by the figure standing calmly atop its surface, watching him. Tom studies it in turn, his smile widening. Tall and cloaked, it is beautiful, incomprehensible, _all-powerful_. It is the essence of his nightmares. It is -

_Magnificent_.

The figure raises a long, black-clad arm, beckoning silently.

Tom obeys, walking forward, his red eyes glued to the figure - to the air that shimmers around it with something that is not _quite_ magic, or at least the sort he's accustomed to. He steps out onto the water, taking a moment to look down in awe when his feet don't sink through, and the brief flutter of fear is squashed as he resumes walking.

There's nothing to be afraid of, Tom knows, as he looks at the figure. It would never hurt him, never - for he is Tom Riddle, precious and treasured. There is nothing to fear. Nothing.

But his heart begins to race the more he nears his friend, who is standing quite far out. Tom is close enough, now, that he can feel the raw power rolling off the dark form in frigid waves, and goosebumps break out across his skin as he stops, his mouth hanging open in awe.

_**"Tom Riddle,"**_ the dark form whispers. It looms over him, black and terrible, so tall that he has to crane his neck just to see into its hood. What he glimpses is a punch to the gut, a bucket of ice water dumped on his head; Tom's heart stutters as the calm is torn away, horror and confusion and fury flooding his being, along with cold, consuming terror.

"What?" he breathes, his eyes huge. "How...?"

**_"Hush, child,"_** the monster murmurs, touching his cheek. Its hand feels more like that of a snowman's, rather than a human being's, and the contact freezes Tom in his tracks, preventing any sort of escape. Any sort of protest dies on his tongue; he can only breathe raggedly, for there are no words in his vocabulary capable of conveying the fear - the _revulsion_ \- this monster inspires in him, right down to the threads of his soul.

_And it's **face** -_

_**"So much to learn,"**_ it purrs._** "Alas..."**_

The monster leans down, still holding his face, and Tom has a moment of sick realization as the water shimmers beneath his feet. He looks down, and then back up at the monster, his face white.

"No."

Bloody eyes gleam at him from within the hood.

**_"I am...in need of you..."_**

_No, no - don't - **Potter-!**_

The hand releases him, and Tom has but a moment to scream before he is sinking...sinking...into darkness and water and death.

* * *

_**A/N: And there you go! Sorry to end it on such a note - I'm cruel, I know. Thanks for the support so far, and reviews are always appreciated (they got me through this monster chapter XD)! **_

_**Edit: I promised a couple of reviewers that I would address this story's tags, mainly the tragedy one; I'm not going to change it. This story will be dark, and there will be some death, but I'm currently undecided as to the fates of the main characters, so I'd rather not change the tags just yet. While I can't promise anything, I can honestly say that I DO like happy endings, just as much as I like drama. We'll see where it goes. **_

_**Thanks again, and till next chapter! **_


	7. VII: to drown

**_A/N:  Woah. It's been a while. I don't really have an excuse, except I am bad at finishing things (and school is killing me), but I wanted to thank you guys sincerely for all your support. You're the reason I finally got around to finishing this chapter (which is probably rife with typos that I will go back and fix later). _**

**_ MyMindWasChaos: You're awesome. You especially compelled me to keep working on this. I really enjoyed reading your interpretation of things, and each of your comments made me giddy. Whether you're still reading this or not: thank you!_**

**_I admit, the quality of this chapter is probably lacking, as I was really impatient to get it out to you guys. It may also be confusing in some parts, which is mostly intentional. Still, I hope you enjoy!_**

* * *

**In Wonderland**

* * *

_He stalks through the corridors, his normally angelic face contorted in crimson fury._

_He has been lied to, yet again, but this particular deception by the old man is unforgivable. Even now, as he seethes, his other half suffers terribly at the hands of a psychotic brute, and appears to have been doing so for some time, if the bruises he found are any indication. Just the memory of them - bold, black, marring the precious flesh that belongs only to **him** \- is enough to make his soul tear with rage. He knows he must calm down, that it'll only cause problems if he__doesn't reign in on his emotions, but the hellfire coursing through him is impossible to quell after all he's learned - seen.__ He saw the terror in those green eyes, how his horcrux's starved body hunched in on itself, as if crumpled by the weight of his fear -_

_Another wave of pain not his own strikes his gut. The boy's __fists clench, a murderous inferno searing his insides. H__e grits his teeth, and old paintings on either side of him burst into flames._

_"Password?" the stone gargoyle rum__bles, when he halts finally __before it. It eyes him warily, having no doubt heard the portraits' screams._

_"Move aside," he snarls, crimson eyes blazing dangerously. His magic fills the air, wild and scalding in his rage. It whips the statue warningly._

_"Calm yourself, child," the gargoyle huffs, but moves, anyway. __Ignoring it, he ascends the newly-revealed stairs, allowing the hot gale of his fury to precede him. He finds the old man sitting placidly behind his desk, his face open and calm, though his eyes twinkle curiously as they take in the boy's disheveled countenance. Nearby, Fawkes makes an agitated sound. _

_"Tom," Dumbledore greets pleasantly, his gnarled hands folded loosely in front of him. "I don't believe I scheduled an appointment for today."_

_"That's not why I'm here," Tom growls, walking forward. Dumbledore's eyes narrow slightly._

_"You seem...upset," he says carefully. _

_Tom's lips curls._

_Composure is key, he knows, especially when dealing with Dumbledore; but then another, particularly brutal wave of pain assaults his soul, and his magic erupts again as he swipes his arm across Dumbledore's desk, knocking aside several stacks of paper and the silver instruments the old man is so fond of._

_"You lied to me," he snarls, as Dumbledore stares, unfazed, into his eyes. More of the man's trinkets are falling from their set places, many of them shattering as they meet the ground. The portraits of previous headmasters shift nervously, some fleeing their frames as Tom's power pervades the room in a thick, blistering cloud._

_"You are acting rather unseemly, Tom," the old man says softly, while Armando Dippet cowers behind the chair in his painting. "Sit down, and __we will discuss the source of your ire in a more civil manner-"_

_"I found him," Tom chokes out, ignoring the other's suggestion. "I found Harry Potter, today."_

_Dumbledore goes very still. _

_His blue eyes sharpen as they study Tom's face, the twinkle dimming to almost nonexistence as the old man realizes he is telling the truth. Slowly, Dumbledore leans back in his chair. His expression is grave as he murmurs,_

_"You opened the connection."_

_Tom lifts his chin. He refuses to be cowed by the old sod's dismay._

_"I did," he confirms. "I was curious. I wanted...I wanted to see him, my horcrux."_

_His face twists into an ugly, dark expression. "Do you know what I found?"_

_Dumbledore says nothing, but the sorrow in his gaze is answer enough. Tom releases a ragged breath at the sight of it, his gray eyes huge and incredulous in his cherubic face. _

_"You knew, then," he breathes. "You **know**. The Boy Who Lived is living in a bloody cupboard!"_

_"Tom-"_

_"And his uncle! That blubbering behemoth! How could you leave him with that madman? Have you been monitoring him at all? You preach about love, you foolish old loon, and then you leave what's mine in the hands of a bloody psychopath - "_

_"Tom," Dumbledore cuts in sharply, as books fall from their shelves around them, bursting into flurries of paper and torn binding on their way to the floor. "Calm yourself. Harry's situation is...unfortunate...but necessary - and temporary, I assure you. His aunt and uncle aren't...the best people, but Harry is with them for his own safety-"_

_"He's being **starved!"** Tom screams, his fingers twitching with the memory of his horcrux, tiny and malnourished, in his arms. The boy, according to what he's learned, must be older than him, but he possessed the body of one significantly younger, his black hair wild and his skin mottled with bruises and scars. He didn't make a sound at Tom's appearance, though he must have been startled - Tom suspects he has had much practice in the art of forced silence. _

_He bares his teeth at Dumbledore, who, for once, is sitting speechless before him, and tries his best to calm down. Composure is key, composure is key...the longer it takes to control himself, the longer his horcrux will suffer..._

_He takes a deep, shuddering breath, and leans across the desk, until he can see each dimming twinkle in Dumbledore's shocked eyes. _

_"You are going to take him away from there, right now," Tom says, very softly. The desk begins to melt under his hands. **"Or I will."**_

* * *

Harry is just walking out of the bakery when he feels it: a white-hot pulse of agony in his chest. He almost drops the little cake he's just bought as he doubles over, a sharp cry escaping his lips.

_What...?!_

"Sir?" A young woman touches his arm, her face soft with concern. "Are you alright?"

"M'fine," he grunts after a moment, when the agony has simmered down to intense pain. Straightening, he sends her a warped parody of a smile before hurrying away, clutching his purchases in his arms as he searches for a place to Disapparate unnoticed.

Something is wrong - _smething is wrong -_ he knows this as surely as he knows his own name - can feel it in the twist of his gut and the mounting throb behind his temples -

Tom, he thinks, unbidden, something like panic bursting within him. Ducking behind a shoe shop, Harry envisions his home and grits his teeth against the wave of pain that assaults him, along with the typical discomfort of disapparation. His mind races as the loud buzz of the city is replaced with the relative quiet of Godric's Hollow; is the boy hurt?

The sharp stab of agony in his ribs makes him think so, and Harry's instincts rise to the surface as he opens the front gate to his home, eyes alert for any sign of his charge. The grounds are empty - save Doyle Diggins, who beams at Harry from the doorstep.

"Ah," he says cheerfully, either ignoring or oblivious to the annoyed twist of Harry's mouth. "There you are, Harry! I feared I wouldn't see you today..."

He holds up a tray of scones. "I made another batch. Since you like them so much. M-Maybe we could both enjoy some over tea?"

Harry opens his mouth, ready to make a clipped reply, when his lungs constrict. He gasps, and the world dissolves abruptly into darkness swathed in murky blue, broken only by the bubbles rising from his screaming mouth -

"Merlin," Harry whispers, terror staking his heart. He tugs at his hair, sick with realization. _"Tom."_

The lake. But how? How did he get past the wards without Harry feeling so much as a twinge? He prepares to apparate, some part of him surprised at the panic currently lighting every nerve, but not before he knocks the God-awful scones from Diggins' s arms and shoves his treasure and the cake into them instead.

"Hold onto those," he orders, and is gone.

* * *

Dying is a horror Tom is not prepared for.

He is sinking, disoriented, to the bottom of the lake, seaweed brushing his legs, foul water clogging his throat, stifling his screams. His arms wave uselessly about him as it fills his lungs, and this is so much worse than when Potter dunked him, because he cannot breathe, cannot fight, cannot bloody _think -_

He can only look up at the light-ridden surface, his eyes bulging, his mind a raging torrent of terror and blind panic. Why can't he move? How did he end up like this? What was that awful creature?

At that moment, he becomes aware of something frigid - slimy - coiling around his struggling body like a snake. It winds around his legs and his torso, effectively halting resistance, and something raw, primal, bursts within Tom as he is dragged to the very floor of the lake. The light above is so distant as to be unreachable. Around him blooms an inky darkness, the same strange magic chafing his senses as crimson eyes appear just before his.

Tom stares at the monster, paralyzed - dying - and the monster stares back.

_Why are you doing this?_ He wonders, as black creeps into the edges of his vision. _What have I done to you?_

The creature seems to hear his thoughts. An icy hand, black as space, rests upon his shoulder.

**_You are a victim of circumstance, I'm afraid,_** it whispers. _**You needn't worry...I shall make good use of your flesh, little one.**_

Tom's failing heart shrinks at that. He is even less comforted by the monster's next words:

_**And dying isn't all that bad, really. **_It leans closer. _**It's what comes after you should fear.**_

The monster's hand slides to his neck, it's icy fingers burning his flesh. Tom dimly realizes that it is waiting for his death. But to what end? What does it mean by "making good use of his flesh?"

He doesn't know. He really doesn't want to find out.

_I'm going to die._

It's impossible. He is Tom Riddle - young and powerful and meant to do great things. He is going to change the world. He is going to be remembered. He cannot die here, not now - not this way.

A dark finger runs along his cheek.

_**So ambitious,**_ the creature croons. _**So **_**hungry.**_** Alas, little fool, this is where your story ends. There are...more important ones to tell.**_

It is spoken so simply, the final seal on Tom's death warrant. The terror it cleaves through him, however, is jagged and brutal. Like a blade it pierces his psyche, overwhelming him so utterly with the primal need to _live_ that his magic erupts against its binds.

It bursts from his body with the force of an explosion, clashing with the old, strange magic and knocking the creature back. The slimy thing holding him in place loosens a little; Tom experiences a queer disconnect with his body, which is thrashing, writhing, fighting against his encroaching demise.

His mind is dim and sluggish from lack of oxygen, however - Tom sees the creature regain itself with a dark, derisive sound, and knows, as the slimy thing tightens to the point of pain around his body, that it's over.

_Potter_, he thinks again. The letters, strung together, are a beacon in the fading light of his consciousness. The word means something to him, but he can't remember why. As his heart stutters and his body stills, Tom recalls, with startling clarity,the brilliance of green eyes. Lost to him, once again.

_ This is always how it ends._

The thought comes from nowhere, strange and unbidden. His eyes droop closed.

Distantly, he hears the monster hissing in his ear, but he can no longer understand its words. Something precious is leaving his body - and taking him with it. Tom feels light and airy and so very tired -

He is floating upward, upward, out of the lake and above the trees, until the world blurs into an indistinguishable mass of color and shape around him. A woman's voice, soft, and familiar, somehow, is calling his name with tender sorrow - he sees her outline up ahead, framed by light -

And then she dissipates, like the cruelest of dreams. As his surroundings change again, Tom becomes aware of the tether still linking him to his dying - dead? - body, and, along with it, the most horrible sensation of liquid ice seeping into his flesh. It fills his veins - encases his struggling heart - gnaws at the tether, his last connection to the living, until he _wants_ to die.

His existence narrowing down to the purest agony, Tom screams, his incorporeal form flickering and convulsing as he struggles upward, away from the pain, from the feel of his soul being forcibly removed from his body.

Under the agony is the sickening sensation of something else sliding in; he wails again, for it is a feeling of unparalleled horror.

But Tom finds something worse as his surroundings settle into a terribly familiar setting. He sees the mist and its never-ending doors, sees the black-robed figure looking down on him - and is petrified.

_No_, he moans. _Nooooo..._

He is not supposed to _be_ here. No one is.

"Oh, dear," the figure murmurs above him. It's voice is different, however...heavy with untold ages...

Tom realizes, dimly, that he is dealing with another entity entirely. It doesn't seem malevolent, watching impassively as his form shudders with pain, but he is no more comforted by its presence than he is the creature currently drowning him. For next to this entity stands a blackened door, and the sight of it is so horrible - so unspeakably _wrong_ \- that Tom cannot bear to be near it, much less look at it.

Even in the midst of his pain, he knows that the figure before him is responsible for the ruined entrance. That alone makes it just as repugnant as its counterpart.

"So he's found it," the figure whispers. "How unfortunate."

Tom moves to shrink away, when he feels the tether snapping. Another wail is torn from his form. He screams and screams and screams, blind and deaf and _doomed_, aware now only of the foreign presence seeking residence within his body down on earth, its filth burrowing down into his very cells _\- no - _

_Getoutgetout**getout - **_

A soft sigh cuts into his bout of madness.

"I'll help you, little one," this other entity says. "Just this once."

A cool hand rests on Tom's head, an anchor in the chaos overtaking him. The pain recedes a little.

"I expect to be repaid," he hears. And then he feels it: the same old magic seeping from the figure's palm and into him. He looks up and sees the figure leaning over him, the ends of white hair peeking from the darkness within its hood, before the magic hurls him downwards - through the"ground" and into a blur of colors and confusion.

He falls, falls, falls, hurtling like a comet in the sky, the world below him transforming from a grid of green to Godric's Hollow, and the forest surrounding it, and the lake -

Tom sees a familiar figure running madly across its surface, just before he is dragged by the old magic down into the water's depths. He returns to his body with a jolt, and has time to see the monster's red eyes go comically round before it is thrust away from him, along with the slimy thing, the old magic gifted to him expelling the monster's presence from his body.

_**You-!** _The monster has time to snarl, before the old magic assaults it again, driving it further and further away until it is shrieking with pain and fury.

**_This is _not _over!_ **It howls. _**I will find you, little runt! I will rip you limb from limb, and **_**nothing**_** will save you - !**_

Tom watches it implode on itself, a numb sort of terror filling him as black wisps scatter throughout the lake and into nothing. Freed, he struggles weakly to the surface. Despite the other figure's intervention, he still doesn't know how to swim. His throat burns from lack of air, and his thoughts are too disjointed for him to think coherently.

He's still damned.

Tom is on the precipice of accepting this, when his hand, floating idly above him, is caught in a crushing grip. He thinks for a split second that the monster has returned somehow, but it's hand was not so warm as this one. He looks up, through heavily lidded eyes, to see an angel looking down at him with the strangest mixture of terror and blistering fury. Tom's eyes widen in awe.

_Beautiful_, he has time to think, before he is being yanked upwards - crushed to a hard chest and cradled in warm arms. It is heaven in comparison to the cold depths, and he curls into the angel's blessed warmth as his head breaks the surface and the miracle of air fills his lungs.

His body is wracked with a series of harsh, watery coughs, and he feels a hand patting his back with a little more force than is necessary. The angel is murmuring fervently in his ear, but his head is swimming and he cannot register the words.

_"Tom,"_ it's saying raggedly, over and over. "Tom, stay with me please, please - can you hear me? - _fuck - !"_

His head lolls, his eyes passing distantly over the forest and the water sloshing restlessly around them. Time is a slippery thing; Tom blinks and the world tilts, so that he is staring at the cloud-streaked sky, solid ground beneath his back. Beside him, the angel is breathing too fast, its hands frantic over his body.

"Tom."

He closes his eyes. There is a sharp slap to his cheek.

_"Tom."_

He is tired. The sting of the blow hardly registers. Behind his eyelids, Tom sees the mist and its many doors, the strange weightlessness of the place filling his bones, along with a familiar horror. The other figure - the one who helped him - looms over him. Watching.

"Tom! Dammit, Tom, I-"

A long, ragged breath.

There is a pause, and then he feels the most peculiar warmth rolling over him, and in specific patterns.

"C'mon," the angel is whispering roughly. The warmth rolls over Tom's body, and though it is nice it does nothing to dispel the numbness settling over him, as thick as the mist of the Forbidden Place. He is divided by a peculiar dissonance; behind his eyelids is the mist and the endless row of doors, the figure tilting its head as it studies him; in his ears is the angel, making the most wrenchingly beautiful sounds.

"Tom," it cries, and he feels distantly as his body is lifted - cradled to the angel's form, wracked with what he realizes are sobs.

Weeping. The angel is weeping.

_For me._

"Come back to me," it begs, and so Tom does.

Something without name rises within him, a tether of pulsing warmth, and he grasps it, allowing it to dispel the foggy world and lead him -

_Home._

His soul swells, settling once again in its body, thrumming at the promiximity of its match, its bonded...

_i am you and you are me_

Tom opens his eyes.

The weightlessness of earlier has vanished, and he feels impossibly heavy. But the angel is still weeping, its eyes squeezed shut, its forehead drooping to rest against his. hot tears fall fast onto Tom's face. An ache building behind his temples, he focuses all his concentration into raising his right hand. It's scarily difficult, but he continues to strain, until his palm is resting at last against the cool alabaster of the the angel's cheek. Warmth sings within his soul.

It - _he_ \- freezes beneath Tom's touch.

The angel's eyes snap open, round and wet. Tom stares into them, mesmerized. He has never seen such beautiful eyes. They speak of other things. And the longer he looks, the more Tom Riddle comes back to himself, until his heart is swelling with something soft and foreign, rather than the cold hatred the face above his usually inspires.

"Don't cry," Tom whispers.

_you are mine_

_you aren't allowed to feel pain_

_unless I will it_

He coughs up water, then, but before he can muster the strength to wipe his chin he is being crushed to a firm chest so tightly he thinks his ribs might crack.

"You idiot," the angel - _Harry_ \- chokes. How strange, to hear him so ragged, so stripped of the composure that so frustrated Tom, because it was better than his. "You _idiot..."_

Tom sighs against his guardian. He is so very tired - too tired to even defend his genius. A shudder wracks his body, and he becomes violently aware of the chill settling in his bones, unaided by the soggy, ruined clothes that cling to his colorless skin.

"Cold," he croaks, against Harry's neck, subconsciously breathing in the other's scent. How wonderful he smells - like soap and familiarity and - and -

_Home_, Tom thinks, a strange fluttering in his chest. "Home."

Harry quiets.

"Tom?"

Darkness creeps along the edges of his vision, like shadow, and Tom's first thought is that it's come back, the monster - come to rip him limb from limb, as promised. But then Harry stands, shifting Tom in his arms, and as Tom's arms wind around his neck, the boy senses the foolishness of the notion. He is safe with Harry Potter. So long as they are together, the monster would not dare. He can't say how he knows this, but the truth of it stirs deep within him. He closes his eyes.

"Take me home, Harry," he mumbles, and he feels the other's arms tightening around him before he succumbs to unconsciousness.

* * *

Harry has grown unused to the taste of terror, how acrid it is on his tongue. Once, not long ago, he wore it like a second skin, clinging to him at all hours, and he was able to work through it then, to channel it into something useful and not overwhelming.

It seems he has lost the ability.

Terror clogged his lungs just now like the murky water had Tom's lungs, chilled his bones and frozen his blood and torn through his mind until his thoughts were wild, unfocused - too chaotic for him to even think of Apparating, lest he halve himself and Tom.

And Tom is everything. Harry realized this as he laid the boy, tinged blue and horribly still, upon the shore. Harry's world hinges upon the beat of Tom Riddle's heart, the breath in his lungs, the way of his soul. The boy in his arms means everything, because if Harry can reform him then he can reform the world, and...

And...if he is honest with himself, he has no desire to be alone. Tom is false and arrogant and the miniature version of the monster who ruined his life, but he is all Harry has in this foreign age. With him, Harry has a purpose. A reason to wake up each morning. Should anything happen to the boy, Harry knows he will not last long. The hole in his chest, which Tom so often distracts him from, would consume him.

He clutches the boy tighter, his legs unsteady beneath him. His heart is still racing, and he had a moment of panic a minute ago, when Tom did not respond to his name. He halted in his trek back to the house, panic constricting his chest again, until he felt the boy breathing hotly against his neck.

_Asleep_, he realized. Or unconscious, more likely.

That can't be a good sign. But Harry isn't sure. He is used to healing cuts and gashes and other wounds, but drowning and its after-effects are beyond him.

Hermione would know. He grits his teeth against the pain that thought brings, and forces himself to walk faster; he's still wary of Apparating, right now. Once they arrive at the house, Harry will figure out what needs to be done. And once Tom awakes - because he _will_ awaken - he can question the boy as to what compelled him to such profound, suicidal stupidity.

This, in particular, plagues him with each step. Tom Riddle is smart. Brilliant, really. And, as Harry has gleaned, afraid of water to the point he would consider it a phobia. What would possess him to do something so foolish as to go in the lake without him? It seems absurdly out of character. Tom is arrogant, not suicidally brave, as some would call Harry. In fact, Harry would go so far as to call him a coward, when it comes to death and in all its flavors (much like his future counterpart).

So what happened in the time Harry left? Why hadn't Tom triggered the wards?

Harry recalls the strange burst of magic he had sensed, just before pulling Tom from the lake. It was like nothing he has ever felt, powerfully old...but still...

_Familiar. _

Something else is going on, here.

Harry cannot fathom what, but it leaves him with a chill, and his arm tightens around Tom's middle, his right hand burying itself in the boy's thick locks. Whatever is happening, he will find out soon enough, and it will be dealt with _swiftly_. He has been through too much to allow anything - be it other wizards or the Ministry or Merlin himself - to threaten the life he is building, here...

Relief floods him at the sight of the house up ahead. When he finally passes through the gates, Harry is ready to collapse with exhaustion, and has to restrain a scream when Doyle Diggins appears in front of him, still holding the items Harry thrust at him, earlier.

"You've returned - !" He starts, only to quiet abruptly at the sight of them. Harry can only imagine how he looks (probably as bad as he feels), with Tom, dripping wet and unmoving in his arms.

"What - what's happened?" Diggins asks tremulously.

"The lake," Harry mumbles, walking past him. "He almost drowned."

And it is so much worse, speaking it aloud. Guilt comes crashing down on him at last, as he knew it would, once the panic dissipated. Harry's shoulders slump under the weight of it, and he pauses before the front door, taking a moment to turn his face into the softness of Tom's hair and murmur an apology. He isn't heard, he knows. Just as he is aware of the fact that Tom will most likely never forgive him for this. For almost failing to save him.

Harry isn't sure he can forgive himself.

Tom had wanted to go with him so badly, but Harry was too selfish, too focused on the past, to even consider the boy - the fact that he had never been left by himself, before - beyond a brief twinge of guilt. And look what happened.

He enters the house, his face twisting.

_I'll make it up to him_, he tells himself. _I will._

Nevermind that all the progress they've made over the past two months has likely become dust.

"Oh, my," he hears Diggins entering the house behind him. "Will - will he be alright?"

The man sounds genuinely concerned, and Harry softens despite himself.

"Yes," he says softly, looking over his shoulder. "I think so."

Shaken, certainly, and probably traumatized - but alright.

"I can call a doctor, if you're not sure," he offers, as Harry mounts the stairs. He needs to get Tom out of these clothes, but pauses on the first step, considering. A doctor means questions - potentially dangerous ones.

_Where were you when this was happening? Away? How could you leave a ten-year-old at home by himself?_

Guilt sweeps over him again, along with shame. They would surely take Tom from him, if the circumstances of his near-death experience came to light. Harry wonders if he shouldn't let them.

I'm not fit to raise a child.

He was foolish. He forgot, in his selfishness, that Tom - for all his genius and seeming maturity - was at his heart a child. Troubled - homicidal - and with anger issues - but a child. It's why Harry wasn't able to kill him in the first place.

His mouth tightens. He will not forget again. Indeed, after today, Tom is notus. leaving his a sight. His hands tremble.

"That won't be necessary," he says to Diggins. "In fact, I'd appreciate it if you kept this incident between us."

"O-of course!" Diggins sputters, his cheeks flushing. He is no doubt elated to be in Harry's confidence. "Just between us."

Harry nods once. He has no doubt the man will keep his word, if only in the hope of receiving something Harry has no intention of giving. His eyes dart to the items the older wizard still carries. "Will you set those in the kitchen?"

At Doyle's agreement, he turns away with a murmured thanks and resumes his trek up the stairs. He will turn his attention to the portrait, later. Tom is all that matters, at the moment.

_I'll be better. I'll be everything he needs._

Harry is dreading the inevitable fallout when Tom awakens and lashes out at him, but for now, he is content to lay the boy in his bed and marvel at how angelic he looks when not plotting Harry's murder. He doesn't know any drying spells, so Diggins proves himself useful in this regard, helping to restore Tom to normal temperature before being forced to leave on business.

Harry, though grateful, is not sorry to see him go. After several failed attempts to awaken Tom, who bats irritably at him each time, Harry sighs and sets about ridding Tom of his new clothes, fitting new ones on him with another flick of his wand.

"You're alright," he says aloud, as much to assure himself as Tom. He pulls the comforter up to the boy's chin, carefully tucking it around his frame. How thin he is. Harry really should set about feeding him more. "You're alright."

He sweeps away raven locks from his charge's cherub face, surprised at the tendernessd of his own actions. Oh, the monster this boy would've become...and here Harry is, worried sick over him. He experiences another moment of surrealism as he looks down at Tom Riddle. Tom Riddle. The sneering memory in the Chamber of Secrets - the red-eyed murderer screaming a curse -

The boy who had looked so awed upon first stepping into Diagon Alley. Who had blinked at him so innocently in the ice cream shop, a dab of chocolate on his nose. Who always flushed with such pleasure at Harry's praise, though he pretended indifference, and clung to him so tightly that first day in the lake, his thin face scrunched up in the fiercest scowl...

Harry closes his eyes.

The boy is not the monster. He knows this now.

Still...

Harry buries his face in his hands. He sits with Tom for a while longer, lost in thought, before getting to his feet. Tom will be alright. He must turn his attention to other things. He wards the room before leaving it - just in case - and heads downstairs.

Each step feels impossibly heavy. It is a painful day for him. He must honor it - _her_ \- nonetheless...

He walks into the kitchen, telling himself that he will make this quick - that he will do what needs to be done, and then head back upstairs and collapse next to Tom. He's so tired...

Harry ignores the portrait at first, walking past where Diggins set it on the kitchen table. He isn't ready to face her, yet. The hole yawns wider than ever within him, and he busies himself by tidying up, cleaning the counters and the stove and rearranging the food in the cabinets, his hands trembling.

Finally, when he can put it off no longer, Harry pulls all the curtains over all the windows until the first floor is considerably dark. He mutters a spell under his breath, and the area around him grows bright again with the lights of a hundred little flames. They hover around him, casting an appropriately somber atmosphere, as he seats himself at the kitchen table.

Slowly, Harry frees the cake from its container. He considers it for a moment, the blue frosting - her favorite color - and the assortment of candles sticking up from its surface. Eighteen of them. She would be eighteen, today.

He lights each one by his own hand, as a muggle would. Once the match is discarded, Harry sits back, studying the flames.

It is a long moment before he can collect himself, fully, and even longer before he can muster the strength to reach for the portrait and set it upright, so that they are facing each other.

His head begins to pound.

_Ginny._

She waves at him from the portrait, her face lit with a smile. How beautiful she is, even now, when she is but a collection of paint strokes and magic. The artist is truly a master. He has recreated Harry's memory so vividly, he can almost pretend it is really her looking out at him, her flaming hair lifted slightly in an imaginary breeze.

He takes a deep breath. The Ginny before him is little more than a figment of his memories, before everything took a turn for the worst. She is not sentient, or even real. Allowing himself to believe otherwise, even for a moment, would be detrimental to his life here.

Ginny is gone, Harry reminds himself, his hands curling into fists. He knows this, he does, but it does not change the fact that she, of all his loved ones, has plagued his every waking moment, from the time he opens his eyes in the morning to the time he closes them in an attempt at sleep. Her ghost sits upon his shoulders with all the weight of the world, so heavy that any hope of lasting progress towards the future is impossible. Harry cannot move forward while the memory of her clings so fiercely to him.

He cannot love Tom while he is haunted by Ginny.

And so this is goodbye.

After today, he will do his best to lock her away, in the deepest, most precious confines of his heart. It won't be easy, by any means, but - like so much of his life - it must be done.

He must lose her to save her. And if that means forgetting everything - the scent of her hair, the breadth of her smile, the love in her eyes - then so be it.

_I will always love you._

"Happy birthday," Harry whispers.

He pretends he doesn't feel as hot tears slide down his cheeks. But more come, dripping into the table in copious amounts, until the portrait and the flames blur before his eyes. He bows his head.

Tomorrow, he will do his very best not to think of her, but today he will remember. Today he is allowed to ruminate on the life they might've had.

And so Harry gives in to the despair one last time, before he must straighten his back and wipe his eyes and pretend he is not riddled with holes again. It is so hard, being strong. So tiring.

There are days he wakes up and wants only to die.

But that would be cowardice, and Harry intends to follow his friends and leave this world as a Gryffindor.

Right now, he feels terribly weak, and most unbecoming of his House. Harry's grief numbs him to the world, settling over him like a cloud - impenetrable enough that he does not feel as the wards he set are breached. He does not hear the stairs creak under another's weight, or feel the eyes boring into him as he succumbs to his own melancholy. After this, he will not think of her. After this, he can focus on -

"Harry?"

Harry shoots upright, his head snapping to the source of the voice. Tom stands in the living room doorway, his head tilted to the side.

Harry hastily wipes at his eyes, gritting his teeth against the urge to snap at the boy.

"T-Tom," he says, hating how tiny his voice sounds. "You're awake."

Tom watches him. He is still a little pale, his hair ruffled and his overall appearance a far cry from his usual tidiness, but he looks much better than he did earlier. His eyes have regained their usual sharpness.

"You're sad," he observes.

"I'm fine," Harry lies, wondering at the softness of the other's voice. He expects acid - venom - curses and threats for his role in Tom's almost-demise...but the boy is only studying him intently.

_It'll come,_ Harry knows, turning away. "You should get back into bed. You need to rest. I'll bring you something to eat in a minute."

Tom says nothing. Harry takes that for acceptance, until he feels a touch on his arm. He looks to see Tom peering up at him, his eyes large and smoky gray. There is something strange in them, something other than the disdain Harry expects, and it makes him uncomfortable for reasons he can't quite pinpoint.

"Tom," he says, unable to keep the bite from his tone. "Go back to bed. I told you I'd bring you - "

His words dry into nothing as the boy climbs onto his lap, settling himself there as though Harry were Santa Claus. Harry stares at him, his brow furrowing. He is utterly lost.

"Tom."

"You're sad," the boy murmurs again, raising his hand. Harry flinches, but Tom means only to - to brush away his tears? The pad of his thumb sends little jolts of electricity along Harry's skin. What is going on here?

Suspicion curls in Harry's gut, and he is fully intent on removing the boy from his person, when Tom's arms wrap around his neck in a familiar action.

What in Merlin's name - ?

"I don't like it when you're sad," Tom whispers, startling him into silence. He sounds - he sounds genuine, but then, Tom Riddle is a very good liar...

Harry's chin quivers. Despite himself, he finds his arms wrapping around the boy in turn. Tom makes a pleased sound, curling into him with convincing affection, and though he knows it is a lie, Harry cannot bring himself to dispel the illusion. He has no desire to deal with the ugliness that is the real Tom Riddle at this moment in time.

Right now, he is solid and warm in Harry's arms, and a reminder that he is not completely alone. That he still has a purpose. That he is sitting here before the portrait of his lost love for a reason.

He rests his chin against the top of Tom's head, his eyes squeezed shut, and so does not see how Tom gazes at the portrait, his eyes cold and calculating. He does not register the possessiveness of the boy's hold, how his arms encircle Harry's neck like a noose.

Like every bad horror-movie protagonist, Harry Potter is ignoring the signs.

Far, far away, in a place outside of time - where angels fear to tread and human beings may never go - a figure swathed in darkness shakes its head.

_Thus it begins._


	8. VIII: the calm before the storm

**A/N: So I finally got off my lazy ass to produce this for you guys. I want to thank you so much for inspiring and supporting me; I am terrible at responding to people, but know that I read and treasure every review. **

**Also - the italic parts in the beginning are deliberately confusing. You're not supposed to get them, yet. Know that I am not needlessly vilifying the Dursleys (and that's all I can say without spoilers). **

**Sorry for the wait, and thanks for reading!**

* * *

_His world is shattered with a scream._

_The boy curls into himself instinctively at the awful sound, his starved frame trembling with terror and the pain of his injuries. He can take no more, no more, and despite himself he sobs, waiting in agony for the creak of the stairs beneath the fat man's feet. _

_He tears at his stiff, blood-caked hair, weeping brokenly as the screaming stops - only to start up again, shrill and terrible, like nothing he has ever heard before. The boy shudders at the sound, his nails digging into his scalp, his whimpers quieting into bated breath while he waits. The creaking doesn't come. Someone above is wailing, shredding the silence that has reigned for so long outside the fat man's fury, and as he listens the hairs on his nape stand up. He knows well what it is to plead, to beg, and the boy hears it now, interspersed with the shrieks. _

_Then there is a roar, familiar and paralyzing, but abjectly different from what normally strikes fear into his soul. There is agony in the sound, of an intensity he understands intimately, and it rings unendingly in his ears. _

_His heart thudding madly, the boy releases a labored breath and shifts to his knees, biting back a hiss at the spike of pain that follows. _

_Something is happening. He doesn't have a name for the electric feeling sparking in his sternum, but it makes his hands shake, his mouth part, his neck crane towards the ceiling in open-mouthed rapture. The roar goes on and on and on, filling his ears, his chest, all that he is. _

_The fat man is suffering, and it is - a most wonderful sound. _

_The knowledge settles low in his gut, warm and solid. He recognizes the emotion with detached awe. Happiness. How long it has been since the boy has known that - and never so strongly. Always it has been a fleeting thing, snatched sparingly before this darkness became his dwelling. _

_It bubbles within him now, strange but golden - and destined to wither, of course. As the roar stops abruptly, he wishes he could bottle the feeling, keep it tucked close to his heart for when the fat man inevitably comes to vent his rage. _

_He thinks of that phantom, who was so gentle to him, whispering to the boy such impossible things._

**_i am you and you are me_**

_He clutches his chest. Above, a stair creaks. _

_The happiness dies. _

_A whimper escaping him, the boy drags himself to the furthest corner from the door. It won't do any good, not if the fat man is as angry as he sounded, but fear trumps reason, and he curls into as tight a ball as his injuries will allow, shaking violently._

_The last time, when the phantom left, was the worst punishment he has ever received. He fell unconscious at one point, awakening later with a swollen face (typical), a throbbing torso (also typical), and that awful metallic taste in his mouth (another few teeth gone), blood matting the hair on the whole left side of his head, where the fat man swung savagely (not typical). _

_He has still not recovered, and at the thought of the fat man's fists connecting again he bursts again into tears. The creaking increases - not the fat man's usual stomp - and the boy bites his lip hard enough to tear skin, trying and failing to suppress his terror. He will not survive such brutality a second time. _

_"Please," he moans, as the light under the door flickers. Please. _

_He hears a whisper, feels the same electric sensation from before. The lock clicks. _

_The boy buries his face in his knees with a loud sob as the door swings open, light spilling into the darkness. He can feel the weight of the fat man's stare, waiting for him to move obediently into his reach, but the boy is frozen. He has learned well that this only makes it worse for him, incites the fat man's fury, but he can't move - or breathe, or think - beneath his fright._

_His mouth is moving apart from himself, a litany of breathless, gasping "no's," - because this is it, the darkness he will fall into after this will be forever - and he hears amidst his pleas_ _a ragged breath that isn't his. _

_"Harry."_

_That word again, that voice - both tickling some nameless space within him. He is struck with the sudden urge to look up, but his fear is a frigid, seizing thing; his trembling becomes violent as footsteps near him, light and whisper-soft. _

_He hears that ragged breath again, like the fat man is struggling to breathe, and it is far too close -_

_A low moan escapes him as a cool hand grips his shoulder. It is - wet. Sticky. Something sharp and metallic fills his nose, along with an underlying earthy sweetness that prickles at the back of his mind. He, too, is struggling too breathe, now, and forgets how to entirely when another hand presses gingerly against the lump on his head. _

_His whimper almost drowns out the choked sound above him, fingers digging painfully into his shoulder. _

_"Harry." _

_It's not the fat man, he realizes dimly. This is not the fat man's voice or touch or scent - his eyes stream tears and his mouth spills pleas...but there is something blooming in his chest under the other's hand, warm and golden - like happiness, but **deeper**, a burst of completeness and yearning and exaltation rooting at the core of himself - _

**_i am you and you are me _**

_The boy looks up. _

_An angel kneels before him, breathtakingly beautiful and horribly infuriated, it's pale features twisted in rage as its silvery eyes rove his form. The boy's mouth falls open at the sight of the creature, it's perfection accentuated by the splotches of red on its face and hands, which _drip, drip, drip_ as the angel touches his cheek. _

_He is broken and ugly before it - it must not touch him, else it will be **stained** \- and he moves to pull away at the same time that glow within him spikes. The angel is beautiful, and angry, but the boy..._

_For the first time in his shadowed existence, the boy is not afraid. _

_The angel's hands become abruptly like the fat man's, forcing him closer instead of away. _

_"No," he says desperately, shoving at the arms that wind tightly around him, until his nose is buried in the angel's silken hair, it's own face buried in his neck. "You can't, you can't..."_

_You'll be **stained**, he wants to wail, but the glow has become a roar tearing wonderfully at his insides, light filling his entire being. He is warm, and - and safe, and he is a horrible little beast like the fat man says, because he knows this is wrong but he doesn't want to move. He is whole. He is not afraid. He is -_

_"Harry," the angel moans, and the boy becomes aware of a wetness where it's face presses into his neck. "I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry..." _

_He doesn't understand why the angel is apologizing, when it should be him, he is the selfish one, but he can't seem to work his mouth at all, too caught up in this strange thing blooming within him, too fierce to be so tame a word as happiness. He would gladly stay like this forever. _

_Though of course, all good things end. _

_Soon he will wake up, and there will be only darkness and pain. But for now he allows himself to revel in the angel's sweet scent, in its fervent words and the tender brush of its fingers against the boy's bruised flesh. _

_"It's alright," it says tremulously. There is something wild in its eyes. "We're together now, and no one will ever hurt you again, I promise."_

_It takes the boy's face in its dripping hands, it's face twisting in a way that makes him still. _

_"I promise," it whispers again, thumbs brushing away his tears, and smearing that other wetness in its place. "I'll kill anyone who tries. I'll keep you safe, safe..."_

_It reaches for a strange stick left forgotten on the floor, and points it at his head, its eyes shining feverishly. They lock with his. _

_"I keep my promises," it tells him, and the boy remembers with a jolt that harsh whisper in his ear, eons ago, phantom hands clinging to him as his heart raged along with the fat man's approaching roars. _

**"He'll pay."**

_Oh._

_"You're..." _

_His voice is a strange, croaking thing, ugly in comparison to the angel's - the boy's - soft voice. _

_"Shh..."_

_He turns his attention back to the lump, and murmurs something unintelligible. The boy is distracted from the glow that spills forth from the stick, soothing the pain, by the silhouette that fills the doorway. _

_He grips the other boy's shoulder, uncaring now if this is a dream or not, because the man is very tall, with long white hair and flowing robes and white ringed eyes. His skin is devoid of color as he looks at them. _

_Their eyes lock, and the old man steps forward, stooping in the doorway. _

_Energy crackles potently around him. He is powerful. And angry. _

_"You went too far," he says quietly. _

_The words are soft, but backed with steel, and the boy recoils at the shadow in the man's face. He, too, carries a stick, though his is longer, more ornate-looking. The boy looks at it, and swallows. He is afraid, again. _

_His fear has returned so strongly that he almost doesn't register the disappearance of the throbbing in his head, which has plagued him for a small eternity. The other boy leans back, studying him intently, as though the man looming a few feet away does not exist at all._

_"Is that better?"_

_The boy's mouth parts. No sound comes out. His eyes dart between his...his...protector...and the man. _

_He is afraid. _

_"Don't be," the other soothes, again reading his mind. He cups the back of the boy's head, and though that wild light has dimmed, it is still very present in his stare, in the way his fingers twine in the boy's matted hair. "I told you - I'll keep you - "_

_"Tom."_

_The word is icy, cutting. The other boy - Tom...? - falls silent, his eyes narrowing. At last he turns to the old man, and it as though another person sits before him, his angel's face hardening into something less than holy. _

_That strange energy swells, crackling in the air between them. Tom...Tom is ice - wind - and the man is like those deafening claps the boy sometimes hears from beyond the darkness, a rumbling force that rattles him to his very bones._

_The man says softly, gravely: "You went too far."_

_Tom's hands spasm around him. He looks back at the boy for a moment, and then detaches himself, rising to face the man. _

_"Harry," he murmurs, holding out his hand. Enthralled, the boy accepts it immediately, though it is a struggle to stand. His legs are not used to supporting him, and they ache with unhealed bruises. _

_He has to lean into Tom to stay upright. _

_"Do you really think so, old man?" he sneers, while the boy marvels at how much taller he is. He revels in the arm wrapping around him, the fingers digging into his side, and looks up at the man in time to see his startlingly-blue eyes roving him with growing horror. _

_He shrinks from the man's shocked stare, his legs wobbling. _

_"They got what they deserved," Tom spits, his face twisting again. "I only regret that I can't bring them back, so I could do it again." _

_The man's stick slips from his long fingers. "Harry," he says, as though the fat man's fist has driven the breath from his lungs. As though something vital within him has been broken. His shoulders slump, the rumbling energy from before simmering to something markedly less potent. The man stares, his eyes taking on a strange sheen. He looks unfathomably ancient. "Oh, Harry..."_

_That word again. The boy looks between them, his shoulders hunched. After a moment, he grips Tom's sleeve uncertainly and croaks, "Is that...Is that my name?"_

_The man begins to weep._

* * *

Harry Potter, after a near-lifetime of brushing with death (and perhaps worse things), has learned to trust his instincts. He may lack the ingenuity and brawn of his...of his comrades, but he prides himself on his innate ability to anticipate trouble.

And trouble is brewing.

It has been almost three months since the lake incident, and not a day has passed since then that Harry isn't on edge. His unease is a rock in his gut, an acrid taste on the tip of his tongue that silences him, sometimes, during dinner or one of his and Tom's weekly outings. He'll open his mouth, during a movie or play, but then those little bells housed in his skull will _ring, ring, ring,_ and the hairs on the back of his neck will prick up - and Tom will ask what's wrong, his eyes so wide and shining, like that very first day...

At first he attributes it to the lingering mystery of what really happened in August (Tom is arrogant, not stupid, not _suicidal_), the suspicion of an outside force a hard knot in his chest. But the days pass, and peace reigns, summer cooling to Autumn before Harry finally pinpoints the true source of his quiet agitation.

Tom.

They've grown - used to each other, in the passing months. Tom is proud, haughty, a scarily brilliant liar, and so far from a morning person that his irritability deserves its own classification. He is more charitable when left to wake on his own, and so Harry has given up on that particular routine. He is obsessively impeccable, yet has a tendency to leave the bathroom with toothpaste smeared on a corner of his mouth. He flushed an interesting shade of red the one time Harry pointed it out, an action he would come to regret later when Tom was brisk with him the rest of the day. The boy hates being called out in any way, shape, or form, whatever the intention, and Harry surmises he's going to have to do something about his charge's extreme sensitivity at some point, but hey. Baby steps.

Right now, he has bigger concerns.

Tom is proud, haughty, a scarily brilliant liar - and _strange._

On the surface, things seem to have improved: Tom actually talks to him, now, and about the most random things, fairy tales and the trouble stirring in Germany (Harry barely managed a straight face on the subject), the Roman Empire and human nature and the origins of Coca-Cola (he hates the drink with a passion Harry thinks might actually be on par with his counterpart's loathing of muggles).

Tom is thoughtful in these moments, actually listens to what he says, and it is during these exchanges, late into the night in their respective armchairs, soaking in the warmth of the hearth with hot cocoa or tea, that Harry is struck again by how intelligent he is, this scrawny child with too-big eyes. He often feels as though he is holding a conversation with someone much older, and more than once they've engaged in heated debates about the natural inclination of human beings, whether they are at heart liars or honest, good or evil. Tom is a staunchly cynical little boy, and it is in such instants, when he sneers at Harry's insistence that yes, most people are good in the end, that Harry is reminded of his purpose.

He doubts he can completely fix the damage of Tom's upbringing, but he hopes to shine some light in that darkness the boy carries, nonetheless. And he thinks he's making some progress: there have been no attempts on his life as of late (though really it's only a matter of time), and Tom seems to have dropped the cordial, sickly sweet act he adopted in the beginning, which Harry is honestly grateful for. For the most part, he is his typical grumpy self.

But sometimes, he is disturbing.

The first instance was just after the lake incident, which Harry brushed off at the time as Tom needing comfort after such a traumatic experience. Atypical behavior, he supposed, is one of the after effects of near-death experiences. He soothed the boy as best he could, fully expecting another attempt on his life once Tom regained himself (it was his fault, after all), but it has yet to come.

The boy's plotting, he's sure of it, but it's different from before: frequently, now, he'll feel a prickling on the back of his neck, and look up to see Tom staring at him, his eyes stormy and unfathomable and deeply discomfiting, for reasons Harry struggles to discern. He knew the boy was scheming before, when murderous intent lurked in the curve of every smile, but Tom doesn't smile anymore.

He stares, and stares, and _clings_, padding to Harry with whisper-soft steps, cool fingers tugging on his sleeve or skittering up his arms or twining in his own in a painfully tight grip. He never offers a word of explanation, during these moments, and Harry, guided by some unseen force, has never dared to speak, his instincts flaring when Tom crawls into his lap without a sound, or wraps his arms around Harry's neck and sighs into his throat, the bond swelling warmly between them.

It's another form of manipulation, it has to be, and each time sets Harry further on edge. Tom is working toward something, and it is clear he is bent on its fruition.

So when Harry wakes up one night to find his charge standing in the doorway to his bedroom, his eyes large and strange in his pale face, he understands there's about to be problems.

He sits up slowly, red flags waving brilliantly in the murkiness of his sleep-addled mind, and groans,

"What."

Despite his grogginess (for once, there were no nightmares), his hand clenches tight around the wand under his pillow, and tension hardens the lines of his body when Tom doesn't immediately respond. Harry looks at his expression and understands the boy is in one of those moods, again. He very nearly sighs. A dreamless sleep is a rare luxury for him these days, his nights filled often with the resurgence of horrible memories, and he can't help but mourn its loss as he sits up further, his other hand raking through wild hair.

"Tom."

"I can't sleep," Tom says, his voice small.

He stares, unblinking, at Harry, who understands belatedly what it is he wants. _No_, he almost blurts, his brows furrowing incredulously. However...comfortable...they've grown around each other, Harry still doesn't trust the boy. Not completely. Certainly not enough to allow him into his bed, where he _sleeps_.

But Tom's feet shuffle restlessly outside the wards, his arms wrapped around himself, and he looks so very small, though he is almost eleven years old.

Harry allows his head to loll back to the ceiling for a moment, his chest sinking in a sigh. He should be awed, and he is - but only at Tom's audacity. If he wakes up with hands around his throat, or magic whipping at him with dark intent, it's going to set them back tremendously. Plotting or no, they've been getting along so well...

_Baby steps_, Harry reminds himself.

_If I can't trust him, how can he ever trust me?_

The question rattles him. He's taken Tom to plays and movies and restaurants and games, done his best to give the boy what he wants without overtly spoiling him - but what effort has he put into building trust, really, when he can't even give it himself?

With that in mind, Harry clutches his wand and surreptitiously lowers the wards. He tucks it discreetly back under his pillows, and murmurs, "Come on, then."

Tom straightens, his mouth parting wordlessly for a moment. He takes a hesitant step forward, and, when met with no resistance, walks until he is just before the bed. It's too dark to tell for certain, but Harry thinks his hands are trembling.

Repressing another sigh, he reaches over to peel the covers back. Tom doesn't move.

"I don't bite," Harry says, in a wry attempt to cover his impatience. Is the boy having the second thoughts?

Tom's throat works for a moment, and then he climbs up onto the bed. He is definitely shaking. His earlier alarm subsiding, Harry lays back down, only to grunt in surprise when Tom presses close, melding himself to Harry's side, skinny arms wrapping around his middle.

It is an intensely conscious effort to relax in the boy's grip. Trust, he reminds himself, and after a moment he moves his arm from under Tom to wrap around him, in turn. Tom shudders, his cheek pressing into Harry's collarbone, the soft waves of his hair tickling Harry's chin.

"Nightmare?" Harry asks, his insides still simmering with what he hopes is well-masked shock. Tom is clutching at him in a way that makes him wonder for the first time if the other's not acting. But he has to be, why else -

"You spelled the door," Tom whispers, without answering. There is a note in his voice that sends Harry's instincts flaring, again. It takes him a moment to understand that Tom means the wards.

"Yes," he says slowly, struck with the abject sense that he must tread carefully.

Tom's nails dig into his skin, reinforcing his wariness.

"Why?" he demands.

_I thought you might try to kill me in my sleep_ wouldn't go over well, so Harry says,

"I'm very cautious. Your room is warded, too. To keep you safe."

Harry wonders at the relief he feels when Tom seems to accept the answer.

"Oh," he mumbles, relaxing, leading the other male to wonder what would have happened if he told the (whole) truth. Harry can feel the boy's heart pounding from where it's pressed to his side. He must be thinking of the lake incident.

Patting his back, the words fall without thought from his lips, "I'll always keep you safe."

A strange, choked sound escapes Tom at the assurance, and he presses closer, if possible. His heart, instead of calming, thunders against Harry's ribs. Harry's hand raises tentatively to his hair.

"Tom? Are you alright?"

"I'm sorry," the boy says, so softly Harry almost doesn't catch it, and then he's sure he hasn't heard right. He stills.

"I...I was going to kill you, before," Tom whispers tremulously. "You lied to me, and it - it _hurt_, and I wanted to kill you so much it was all I could think about; ending you, making it as painful as possible...I _hated_ you."

Harry's skin is tearing under the force of Tom's nails, but he hardly feels it, his mouth hanging open as he stares down at the boy's head. He's admitting - ?

"But then - but then I fell into the water, and I was dying, and it was horrible - and - and _cold_ \- and there was something - "

He chokes for a moment. "Something - "

"Tom." Harry sits up, cupping the back of his head. Tom's grip is a steel vice.

"I don't remember," the boy mumbles, shaking his head. "I don't..."

"It's alright," Harry soothes, his own breathing labored. He hugs Tom close, his eyes round. He doesn't know what brought this on, but Tom is actually talking about what happened, admitting his intentions, _apologizing_, and Harry has no idea what's going on anymore, but his fingers curl in Tom's hair while he murmurs reassurances, because clearly the boy was more affected than he realized.

He wants to grip the younger male's shoulders and demand what he means by 'something,' because that alone is enough to send alarm bells ringing in his ears, his gut curling in grim suspicion, but Tom is distressed and in need of him.

"I was going to die," he breathes against Harry's throat, his shoulders shaking. Perhaps he's just now coming to terms with the fact. "But you _saved_ me..."

"Of course," Harry tells him, softly. "I would never let anything happen to you, you have to know that, Tom."

Tom pulls away at last, his face twisting.

"Why?" he rasps, his face splotched with red. "Why are you doing all this?"

"What are you -?"

"_This_," he waves his hand sharply about them. "Taking me from the orphanage, pretending you were my father, acting like - like yoabout me - "

Harry has no idea where this is coming from. He pulls back, incredulous.

"I _do_ care about you," he says fiercely, startling himself with the truth of his words. He does care.

"You're..."

He takes a deep breath.

"We're very similar, you and I. I was alone, growing up, too; I know what it's like. No one seems to understand - or care, and the world feels empty, because there's no one to share it with. But I want to show you...how wonderful life can really be. That love is so much more freeing than hate."

He pulls Tom close, again, and the boy goes limply, his mouth open. "I'm doing this because I want you to be happy, Tom," he whispers. "I'm only sorry I couldn't come for you sooner."

Tom clutches at him like he's drowning, again, and says nothing. His trembles are answer enough.

* * *

Tom Riddle has no word for the knot in his chest when he looks at Harry Potter.

It's growing by the day, tighter and tighter in his chest, the man's words ringing endlessly in the depths of his mind -

"_I want you to be happy, Tom."_

No one has ever wished for his happiness, before.

The words leave him breathless when he curls into Harry's side at night, replaying them over and over while he listens to the other male's heartbeat. It is strong and steady, and often Tom closes his eyes, imagining that heart cradled wetly in his hands. His and _only_ his.

He - _covets_ his guardian as he never has anything else, pocket watches or playing cards or the tears of other children. Never have his trinkets, or his enemies' despair, made his hands tremble with such yearning - indeed, they pale in comparison to the white grin of the older wizard, the soft tones of his voice when he is sleepy or exasperated or soothing Tom's late-night restlessness, his arms strong around him.

Harry has nightmares, too, though he does not like to talk about them; nonetheless, Tom is there, privately relishing the opportunity to card his fingers through Harry's hair when he wakes, gasping, his eyes wide and unfocused and sometimes wet.

He is always distant afterwards - Tom has learned to wait until the tremors fade from his body before he moves close again, when Harry is nearly asleep. He buries his fingers in the other's black hair, marvels at the scars that mar his flesh in the most curious places, wonders how the other would react if he were to press his lips to the raised flesh. He is tempted, sorely tempted, but Harry's possible reaction keeps him still.

The days pass, and he memorizes the groggy rumble of his guardian in the mornings, how he shuffles from the room with his hair sticking every which way, a sigh on his lips. He bites his lip when he's thinking and taps his chin when he's stuck on something, his green eyes glazing in thought. He is not as jumpy and restless as he was, but he still starts violently sometimes when Tom approaches him too quietly, his wand whipping out like an extension of himself, and there are moments when his face sinks into something worse than sadness, when he stares out the window or writes in that journal of his, his fingers white-knuckled around his pen.

Tom studies the other male until he knows his smile as well his own - knows his steps, and his sighs, the crack of his bones when he stretches and the and set of his jaw when he loses his temper. Once, Tom relished his outbursts, the cracks in his composure; in a way, it still fascinates him, Harry's anger, but he does his best to avoid it, now. He doesn't want Harry to be angry with him. Tom much prefers his happiness, his brief chuckles and especially his laughter - a bubbling, hard-won sound that is often startled out of him. It never fails to light Tom's insides.

The knot grows bigger in these moments, his tongue dry with wordless things, and he wants only to press closer...

But Harry is keeping him out.

There are things he doesn't know, things Harry won't share with him, and Tom can't help but feel a barrier stands between them, still. He wants, more than anything, to close the gap, and yet...

Every time he breaches the subject of Harry's past, the older male shuts down. It is the fastest way to break his composure, Tom has learned, and while he might once have relished the information, tucked it away for later use, it only perplexes him, now.

Harry Potter saved his life. He does not want his death, anymore, but to know him as intimately as he seems to know Tom. And no one - no one has ever really _known_ him, before. Harry, though...Harry has seen his beneath his guises, faced the ugly thing in all its glory. And he has not turned away.

He wants Tom's happiness.

And Tom _is_ happy. The knowledge leaves him breathless, sometimes - but he _is_. Harry will read to him, voice soft in his ear, his chest vibrating against his back, and Tom will lean against him, wondering silently how he could have ever thought to deprive himself of this.

For Harry is euphoria and bliss and home rolled into one, the first one to see him as he is and _stay_ with him regardless, and Tom has no word for the warmth curling in his gut when Harry looks at him. But it makes his legs wobble.

The days pass, and the knot grows, and for a time, all is well. Tom is content. Harry is _his_.

Then Matilda Mathews moves to Godric's Hollow.

* * *

**_A/N: I don't even know. I meant to include more stuff, but I kind of burned myself out. Really wanted to get this out to you guys. _**

**_Thanks so much for your support, and happy summer!_**


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